In just four years, the battle royale genre has gone from niche to a must-have addition to many of the biggest gaming franchises. Now, many competitive games, including virtually every shooter, continue to iterate on the popular mode in different ways.
Although Midwinter Entertainment is unusually shy to say it, Scavengers is one of the latest innovations in the genre.
It seems like the team doesn't want to be ranked in the maelstrom of battle royale, and maybe that's smart considering how busy that space is these days, but some games inevitably rise to the top, and thanks to the team's shooter pedigree, Scavengers have the potential to emerge from this storm as a fan favorite.
Scavengers is a free-to-play third-person cooperative "survival shooter," according to its creators, but for anyone getting into it for the first time, what you really need to know about Scavengers is that it's about a battle royale.
With dozens of players in each iteration of the game's massive, frosty map, teams of three must work together to scavenge supplies, fend off both AI and human enemies, and be the last team standing when the dropship arrives.
Maybe Midwinter doesn't call its first title a battle royale because it comes with certain connotations, which several Scavengers defy. For example, you can die and come back after a 60 second respawn timer. There is no gulag to impose. There is no reboot van where your allies revive you. The simple, but ultimately extremely long respawn timer is one way Scavengers challenges players to co-op play.
As the map shrinks due to a constantly encroaching blizzard, if at any point all three players are knocked out of a team, they are all returned to the lobby. It provides the right kind of anxiety, the kind this genre is supposed to provide. Being the lone survivor on a team, desperate to survive until your allies return to battle, is fun every time, even if it's not for you. This gives every turn the feeling that you are going to swing.
The map's storm moves slower than those in other games in the genre, meaning you can often outrun it even if you start to come out of it later than you should.
But there are unique consequences to staying in the Scavengers' storm. With gauges for Hunger and Heat, players will see the latter drop quickly, possibly locking out some of their health bars unless they can recover it using campfires or crafting items, like a Heat Boost. As you sprint, you also build up hunger, so even if you're hoping to lay down for a long part of a lap, it won't be long before it's time to hunt for food.
These survival elements add a much-needed twist to the genre. In addition to crafting essential survival tools, players can also craft shields, throwables, and signature weapons for each of the game's seven class heroes at launch, three of which are unlocked on day one. While the crafting and survival mechanics aren't anything new either, Scavengers bridges the excitement of the last player battle royale with the rewards of survival games, where the most prepared players, not necessarily the best shooters, can do the most damage.
Shooting in Scavengers is excellent. The game's pedigree, including former Halo creative director and veterans of Battlefield, Call of Duty, and more, shines through. A fairly standard assortment of firearms, like assault rifles, shotguns, snipers, revolvers, crossbows, etc., doesn't impress with its own innovative mechanics, but they do. compensate through tight controls that ensure players don't need to struggle with the game itself, only the enemies.
That's more than can be said for what is admittedly still my favorite game - PUBG - and brings Scavengers closer to Warzone or Fortnite in terms of a battle royale that really feels good to play. The genre is very prevalent on the map in this regard, but Scavengers is reliable when it comes time for a shootout.
The biggest problem with Scavengers is its map features. The goal of each round is to escape not only with your life, but also with the most data points, which can be gathered at major settlements on the map or dropped by AI and human enemies. That added factor means Scavengers is the battle royale that scores you based on your found loot, which is fun as a concept.
Some of the best elements of the game are nevertheless sometimes let down by an overly flat and barren map between its main settlements. I started using the sniper and crossbow class characters because I just don't see the point of playing someone with close range special weapons like a shotgun or a sword melee. The sight lines are so wide between colonies. It seems anyone who needs their targets at close range is at a serious disadvantage.
I was lucky in my favorite character, a stealthy archer named Kali, being such a strong fit for the current Scavenger geography. Anyone who likes to play as the shotgun of their party may find Scavengers to be more of an uphill battle, figuratively and ironically, because the terrain can be so flat on the outskirts of towns.
I expect the meta to reveal itself quickly to favor long-range gunners, at least in the early stages of Early Access.
Scavenger's economy is based not only on cosmetics, but also on individual research projects that players can explore between rounds. Finding new items, weapons, and talents is simple for anyone who has played mobile games or borrowed from them, though it's worth noting that nothing in the Scavengers economy is predatory like those many mobile games. Players earn credits as they play, and while you can use them to complete research projects faster, I haven't seen any reason to do so yet.
There's always more to unlock, and all the crafting resources you'll ever need can only be found by playing the game. I wouldn't call anything in Scavengers pay-to-win for this same reason. It's a game to win, with an option to speed things up by a few hours if you really want to.
—
Scavengers is in its early days as an early access live service game, and it's a time when fans should reasonably expect some growing pains. Midwinter's debut has less than others, to its credit, though no one will rightly argue that it's without blemishes.
The foundation is solid, and one can quite easily see a future where this competitive game continues to grow thanks to its merging of two of the biggest trends in the industry. Scavengers has at least earned my curiosity for now, and with continued strong support, I expect its harsh but fulfilling world to attract many more explorers as well.
