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Mavericks: Proving Grounds is a game catching attention for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact that it's fusing elements of MMO games with that of Battle Royale, and when we talked to Automaton's James Thompson at E3 we asked about this fusion and what the goals are with the project.

"So it sounds like two very different genres, like MMORPG, Battle Royale, obviously Battle Royale quite a recently-coined term," Thompson said. "We think that those kinds of games are only the initial starting point for a new kind of massively multiplayer competitive experience, so what Mavericks does is actually say 'look, we can make a much stronger version of this experience'. We needed a lot of cool new technology to be able to make that possible, but what Mavericks does is make that massively multiplayer experience something that's quite a lot deeper in the sense there's more world simulation, more impact from players on that game, so you make decisions off more of that information."

"But also when you come out of the game we can reward you in a sort of persistent social hub and an open world with normal rewards, loot, things that give you prestige and make you think 'actually, all those sessions where I got wealth were actually leading to something', and then we add into that event-type games, and things that mean you're progressing with Mavericks and the Mavericks world is progressing with the player base."

All of this is made possible via the use of cloud servers through SpatialOS, which Thompson explains in the interview below, and this lets up to 1,000 players get stuck into the Battle Royale experience. As for the experience itself, what do you make of this fusion between MMO and Battle Royale?

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