Online game "Eternal Return"

Let's talk about the unusual and at the same time canonical Battle Royale. It doesn't look like PUBG or Fortnite, but it clearly follows the book by Japanese writer Koushun Takami, who actually coined the term Battle Royale. And the game supplements the traditional struggle for survival with an overhead view, MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) mechanics, collecting items from found supplies and anime style. All this combination only at first glance seems wild - in reality, the impression is as if this is exactly how such action movies should be made. Let's find out what advantages and disadvantages Nimble Neuron has.

As in any other "battle royale", here you need to appear on a large map, collect the necessary equipment and survive in a fight with other players on a gradually shrinking battlefield. But Eternal Return has a few differences that turn the usual experience upside down. To begin with, the rules of the match here are classic - as in the book and movie, but not in most games of the genre. That is, the map is bounded not by a circular area outside of which everyone dies, but by red locations chosen at random. Once in one of these areas, you'll hear a timer - when it reaches zero, the area will become too dangerous for everyone who has stayed here. And then - as luck would have it. In one deadly zone everyone just goes to the other world, in another they fight each other for the right to go to a safe street.

The control is also realized unusually. You need to direct the hero by right clicks, and the left mouse button helps to use items. With the same help you set the attack vector and the point of maximum force application. For special blows are responsible for the keys QWERT, where four characters are allocated to the standard techniques, and the last - the ultimatum skill. If you're thinking of games like Dota 2 right now, you're right. "Fog of War", top view, calculating the attack range, pumping on neutral monsters - there are enough similarities with MOBA here and without the peculiarities of control. The developers have combined two different genres so cleverly that the mosquito will not sharpen its nose. You get used to the nuances literally in a few hours, but it will take much more time to master them at the master level.

Naturally, there's a backstory behind the scenes that fans of Takami's novel and the movie based on it will love. In the future, the Aglaia Corporation is trying to breed a race of humans with enhanced fighting abilities. To do this, the company has purchased the abandoned island of Lumia, where humans once lived, and sends groups of teenagers there, forcing them to fight to the last man. Each of the participants of the battle has special talents - one, for example, is good in hand-to-hand combat, another shoots accurately, and there are those who use telekinesis, does not make noise or runs with the speed of Flash from DC comics. The characters are also divided by weapon type. Some are great with a club, knife, sword or hammer, while others are good at firing pistols, rifles or throwing shurikens.

Following the hero, you should choose the mode. Although the usual "battle royale" is available from the start, a newcomer should not rush in headlong. It is better to first complete the training, which consists of three chapters and allows you to unlock a trio of characters, and then already fight with bots - computer rivals. It is noteworthy that in the latter case you can even set the difficulty level. If you managed to defeat heavy AI opponents, you can start competing with live gamers. There is also a "Custom Game", where you can create a match according to your own rules and invite your friends to it. As you gain new levels, Cobalt Protocol will open up - a battle on a small location in the format of "4 on 4", and then ranked matches. But for the sake of clarity, let's describe the most common battle, or "Normal Match".

After getting your starter kit, which includes a food supply and your character's main weapon, you land on the Lumia to engage in combat. But this is where classic and modern fashions come into conflict. Don't expect any fierce gunfights near the supply depot in the first few seconds - instead, each of the participants methodically moves towards victory. The match starts with a search of crates, cabinets, cars and piles of garbage, where useful things are located. Once you've got the resources to build something from a blueprint (like a helmet or armor), you stop and build what you need. Then you search for items again, engaging in battle with bears, dogs and other monsters under the control of artificial intelligence. And at the same time you pump up your hero for experience points - experience is given for any action, not only for fighting.

At the same time, you have to avoid enemies and red locations that appear after the time of day - just like in the movie. Dangerous places are marked on the map in advance, and when the timer starts ticking, it's better to get out of here as soon as possible. The teleportation booth will help you in a difficult moment. Only after collecting the necessary equipment, developing the hero to the maximum and surviving a few virtual days, gamers go to the finish line and arrange a showdown in the last safe zone. If someone gets into the fray early, his chances of getting to the finish line will be slim.

Now there are 69 heroes in the game, and with each major patch new ones appear. It is not excluded that in time their number will reach a hundred. Of course, not all of them are unlocked from the beginning. At first you get only one - swordsman Yuki, and then, having passed to the end of the training campaign, you get two more maidens. Other fighters can be unlocked for virtual currency - crystals or coins given for successes in matches. In principle, it's not a problem to unlock a dozen characters in a few hours, just filling your hand on bots. But you shouldn't hurry here, because you need to master each character, understand its advantages and disadvantages, and learn how to effectively use techniques - Eternal Return doesn't tolerate haste.

The characters are unique, you won't meet even a couple of identical ones here. But let's talk about the first three for the sake of clarity. Yuki uses the art of swordsmanship in battle, he runs fast, has good attack and defense. Among his techniques are "Head Kick", "Buckle" (reduces ability roll), "Brave Gentleman" jerk and "Mercy Strike" - a series of attacks with slowing down the enemy. The passive skill "Perfect Form" allows the youngster to regenerate quickly and deal additional damage. Archer Hyo Jin, on the other hand, is a master of attacks and stuns. She slows down and wounds enemies at a distance, including with her amulets, and her Five Elements ultimatum attack destroys all living things in the area of application. In addition, her passive talent is her ability to instill fear in her enemies.

Eve has telekinesis - she doesn't need to go to a crate or a defeated opponent to search it. "Triad of Light" surrounds the heroine with a sphere that hurts anyone who tries to penetrate beyond its borders. "Phase Vortex" acts in a similar way, but also tosses enemies into the air, disorienting them for a while. "Amethyst Flux" allows you to make a dash, and "VF Eruption" burns enemies with a beam of energy directed at them. Notably, the enemy can get out of the way of this attack, so you have to move the mouse, changing the direction of the beam in time. Also, this attack can be easily interrupted if you accidentally switch to another attack. Almost all ultimatum abilities have their own nuances that require getting used to, so you should not master dozens of heroes at once in Eternal Return.

Any character can be upgraded right during a match. Experience points are given for all actions, be it defeating a neutral monster (such as a boar), searching a pile of junk, or simply moving from one location to another. For these points, five skills are upgraded - until you've learned them, you'll have to click at random, because in the middle of the battle there's no time to read and understand anything. The character's strength is also greatly strengthened by equipment items - weapons, headgear, clothes, shoes and accessories. Each of these items is improved by crafting, i.e. collecting special resources on the map and making a new version of the item from them. It is possible, for example, to make a level three cannon out of six or a level two armor out of five in the course of a match.

The game by Nimble Neuron Studios has quite a few unique features, but the map rightfully tops the list. There seems to be nothing unusual in it. We see a typical post-apocalyptic terrain. There is waist-high grass among abandoned houses and cars, ruins everywhere, but some buildings, such as a police station, a temple or a school, you can enter and look around. The island is divided into more than twenty districts, named after a central object - for example, "The Forest", "The Pond", "The Cemetery", "The Warehouse", "The Docks" and so on. Nevertheless, there are enough interactive items here. There are booths for teleporting from one location to another, and also cameras that allow you to spot the enemy at a great distance. But the main thing is, of course, the loot scattered here.

The thing is that resources are tied to a specific location: here you can get some wire, there - a unique rag, here are potato bushes, and here is ore, which can be obtained with a few blows with a pickaxe. At the same time, each character has its own recipes for improving equipment. In order to spend a minimum of time to maximize the upgrade of the hero, users make a plan. That is, they figure out in advance where to go and what to collect to reach the goal as quickly as possible. There are many such plans in the game - you are free to use your own or rely on someone else's strategy, in case it turns out to be more successful than yours. In other words, the map in Eternal Return is not just a terrain with scenery, but a real logistical problem, which everyone solves in his own way.

Eternal Return is a bold experiment that combines several genres at once, but at the same time follows the original source of all "battle royales" verbatim. Due to the complex gameplay, the game has a high entry threshold, so not everyone will like it. But if you got into the rhythm of the competition and understand its subtleties, it will bring you a lot of fun. It will also get rid of annoying offers to invest money, typical for conditionally free projects. For real currency here you can only decorate the appearance of some characters and open others faster, but it does not give any practical benefit. Battle Royale can be safely recommended to fans of Battle Royale, MOBA and creativity of developers who break genre templates in their games.

Zarium. January 2024