Lately, we’ve seen a new interest in the looting system, even some new looting options appeared in video games, mostly thank to the arrival of Battle royale games since it’s a core mechanic in them.

Drop, gear up, kill or be killed is the main mottos of these games. Today I’ll take a closer look at this gear up step, especially the looting system, whether picking items from the ground or from another player.

I’ll focus on the three most played battle royale games, Playerunknown’s battlegrounds, H1Z1 and the newcomer, Fortnite.

Context of these games

In Battle royale games, there are feelings really specific, the kinds that you can hardly find in other games, and it’s probably the reason of their success.

It’s that positive stress which follows you the whole game. This stress comes directly by the feeling of no safety space, at any moment you can encounter an enemy, at any moment you can be surprised by someone staying in a building or a bush, by someone coming from you back, by multiple opponents at the same time, this incertitude and insecurity are mostly positive and direct the gameflow.

This stress is also reducing the patience of other thing and modifies the way of thinking of the player when there is several enemies in the same building than him or when the playable zone becomes smaller in end game.

Higher is the stress the more the attention on side things is reduced.

Also the players focus is greatly more important than in other games, because they’re always looking at the horizon for potential enemies, always taking attention to the sound in case an opponent is coming, caring about their life level, their gear, their position, as you can guess that involved less focus given to other things, like looting.

So what do make a good looting system

Let’s define what’s a good looting system in a Battle Royale game;

Adaptive: he has to match with the gameplay intended by game designers, for example a tactical game such as Playerunknown’s battlegrounds should have different purposes than a dynamic one like H1Z1 or even Fortnite since in it you can build a shelter while you loot.

Giving several different ways of looting can be a good point, thus, more players will find themselves the most appropriate one.

Intuitive: No matter if the players have to drag and drop items, click on it or even open another menu to pick up, it has to be intuitive. Any kind of friction is prohibited there, players have no times to focus on that in a survival game, especially when the level of stress is high and their capacities of thinking is reduced. Affordance plays a big role in the intuitiveness, because what’s the point of a looting system if players didn’t not even understand what they can loot?

Usually, it’s not a problem for games to suggest it but for a new player it can be confusing to see a bag or a crate spawning from his first kill, in particular from a long distance. Also sometimes items can be too well tidy in buildings that the player didn’t even notice them.

Fast: Even if the intention of the game is to be slow, like Pubg (Playerunknown’s battlegrounds), looting shouldn’t take a decade, because if more time is assigned to it means less time is assigned to other things. If pro or high level players are seeking the fastest way to loot it’s not for nothing, they are playing against the watch, so time is precious.

Looting system in Battle royale games

Pubg (Bluehole, 2017)

Bluehole, the company, has put a lot of work in the looting system since the start of Pubg, they, for example, allowed player to pick up items while moving or improved the drag and drop in inventory. As said before Pubg is the Battle royale with the slowest gameplay, more focused on tactical movement, the looting system follows this trend.

There are two ways of picking up an item, either by directly pressing F (it will equip this item or put it in your inventory) or by opening the inventory then proceed to click or drag and drop needed items.

When a character gets killed, he lets a wood box containing all of his stuff, to take it the players have to open their inventory while being close to this box.

Adaptive: 4/5 The looting system match pretty well the gameflow wanted by game designers, it’s meticulous and without friction.

Intuitive: 3/5 Sharing similarities with H1Z1, Pubg offers a standard looting kit with giving multiple choices such as picking up from the ground, click or drag and drop from the inventory. Sometime it can be hard to understand which items can be looted or not, for example jerricans can be picked up, and they have a texture similar to the gas cylinder, but these ones are useless. Also, same as before, when a room is too dark it’s impossible to distingue items, and an unseen item is also useless, opening his inventory is mandatory in order to use them.

Fast: 2/5 The looting phase at the beginning is sorely slow down by the slowness of the door opening and building exploration, or even by dark rooms like said before.

Also, sometime, items can be stacked up, so players are forced to open their inventory if they want to know what is on the ground and loot an item.

Looting by opening inventory

The relation between “Adaptive” and the two other perks could be sometime conflicting.

For example in Pubg, the gameplay is kind of slow compared to its two concurrents, so if the looting system is adaptive he has to be also slow to be successful. Thus, the “Fast” perks should lose in interest, but I respected the pubg gameflow, so my judgment takes this in account, I only judged the slowness of these interactions and not the slowness of picking up then putting the right items in the desired slot.

Adaptiveness have the upper hand on Fastness.

H1Z1 (Daybreak, 2015)

Items picked up from the ground are directly equipped if this item wasn’t already looted like Pugb, it’s really quick to pick everything in a house, thank to fast movement speed and interactions.

Corpses leave a bag containing stuffs of the dead character, again, you can see them by opening your inventory close to it, you have the possibility to click or drag and drop. You can also move some steps around the bag without losing the range of opening, Pubg and H1Z1 are almost identical on that point, the biggest change is that in H1Z1 there is fewer items dedicated to be equipped but more to be crafted.

Looting a dead character

Adaptive: 3/5 Quick looting interactions for quick gameplay, there is two points taken because it’s too long to loot your first kills, simply because there is a lot of crafting which can totally slow down the intensity, some pro-players do not even craft anymore despite strong advantages occurred by it, because those seconds used to ripping off, managing inventory then crafting can be precious.

Intuitive: 4/5 Quite the same statement made for Pugb, it stays on the standards of Battle royale games. About affordance, items are nicely contrasted with the environment; it’s easy to understand which item can be picked up or not.

Fast: 4/5 As said just before, the crafting can slow down the looting in the early game, but despite this the looting system is really fast once understood.

Fortnite (Epic Games, 2017)

Fortnite offers a wide range of new features in battleroyale, there is no more equipment slots, items found will only be weapons related, building materials or healing items.

A huge part of Fortnite gameplay roams around the building system, at any time if you own enough materials you can build stairs, walls, grounds..

Epic Games had cleverly took, a feature from RPG, it’s showing item rarity by an assigned color, thank to that it become a way easier to identify the power and so to replace a weapon.

A new system looting, greatly different from Pubg and H1Z1, is introduced in Fortnite. Items and ammos spawn normally at the game beginning in the environment, but when players open a chest or kill another character all stuff possessed or contained will drop on the ground, making sometimes a pretty mess.

When the player only needs ammo he has to switch on his pickaxe in order to loot, otherwise he will switch his current weapon for a random one on the ground because your current weapon are replaced as soon you pick up another one if all or your slots are full, it’s again something that can be complicated for beginners.

Looting ammo with the pickaxe

Adaptive: 5/5 This looting system fits perfectly this gameplay, it’s quick and when looting a player in the middle of an area you are kind of forced to build some walls around you in order to take no risk.

Intuitive: 5/5 It cannot be more simple and intuitive than that; you just have to pick up items floating, but a problem will occurs to beginners, it’s the weapons switching while looting, it will takes some games before the player understands that he has to be careful and switch on his pickaxe in order to pick up only ammos, which isn’t intuitive at the first glance.

On the affordance, items are floating with a halo of light and colors which indicate his rarity, it’s hard to find a better way to suggest their uses.

Looting in house

Fast: 4/5 It can happen that when a player opens a chest in a small space every item will spawn in the same place, making it difficult to loot. Also, it’s hard to loot a special item when it’s surrounded by many other ones, a beginner will needs some games before he can understands the looting system perfectly.

Items stacked at the same place

Conclusion

Battle royale games stimulate different feelings than other video games, they’re a mix between standard shooter games (because of their gameplay) and horror games (because of the constant pressure puts on players shoulders). As said in the introduction all of these feelings directly impact the experimentation of the game, as soon as game developers understand and take that into consideration, they will design a system more understanding about players problems and feelings.

The experience of Battle royale games witnesses it.

A glance at the progression of H1Z1 since its beginnings tells how and when game developers understood the importance of the players feelings through updates, redesign and the introduction of new interactions. And a newcomer like Fortnite have already understood that, and assimilated the experience of its predecessors to give a system fitting almost perfectly the game flow, game design and the players.

Games must be designed to fit their own context, because depending if they are a survival-horror, a RPG or a Run and gun players will have different feelings, games will be handled differently, feelings felt while playing greatly influence the players capacities (Focus, fastness, pressure, thinking..).

A successful UX doesn’t ignore its players feelings, even in details such as a looting system.