Now that battle royale games have become legion, the new arms race is to find clever ways for a new game to set itself apart from the Fortnites and PUBGs of the world. In Tencent’s winter-themed Ring of Elysium, which recently launched as a surprisingly polished early access game with cosmetic-only microtransactions, there’s more than a little inspiration taken from those two behemoths, but its wintery theme, clever new ideas around movement, and exciting final moments make it feel distinct.
Here, a smaller-than-average group of 60 players (either alone, in pairs, or in groups of up to four) battle it out to escape a deadly blizzard that ravages remote mountain towns. But unlike the usual trudging around on foot or the occasional vehicle, Ring mixes up the way you get from point A to point B with a map that features not only ski lifts, but also gives you access to snowboards, hang gliders, and mountain-climbing gear. That change injects exciting creativity into the genre without going into off-the-wall fantasy.
Source: IGN.com Ring of Elysium Early Access Review