More and more battle royale games have been hitting the scene due to last year’s success of Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG). It’s creator, Brendan Greene, recently gave his opinion on the recent trend of what he calls copycats of his game. After the recent announcement by Hi Rez studios, he probably isn’t getting over it any time soon.

Announced at Hi-Rez Expo 2018, their team-based shooter Paladins will be getting a new battle royale game mode called, wait for it….

Paladins: Battlegrounds

Paladins has received its fair share of criticism in the past for being an Overwatch clone (although to be fair they were working on it before Overwatch was announced). I would have thought that they could have at least come up with a more unique name for their battle royale mode so as to not draw any more criticism.

Paladins: Battlegrounds bills itself as the first-ever hero shooter battle royale, that combines “ability-driven combat with survival gameplay and a fantasy setting to create something new.” It is described as:

“Designed from the ground-up to be played in teams, players must work together to survive in Paladins: Battlegrounds. Supports struggle to keep their Front Liners alive, while Damage Champions let the bullets fly and Flanks look for any possible assassination.

Players spawn into a massive map — over 300 times the square footage of a typical Paladins’ Siege map. Then they hop onto their mounts and begin exploring, looting their way through more than four dozen outposts and tracking zeppelins that drop legendary gear.

As the fog contracts, the stakes are raised. The last team standing wins. And that’s not easy with 100 players all fighting to win.”

Regardless of your opinion on the matter, at least they are putting somewhat of a twist on the genre by making it team and class based. It also make you wonder if Blizzard has plans to add a similar mode to Overwatch, or if they already have something in the works for their own battle royale game.

At any rate, the new mode should be available to play sometime this year.