Ashes Of Creation Splits Off Battle Royale Mode Into Its Own Free-To-Play Game

Battle royale games have been sprouting from the woodwork for a while, and now a new one has now risen from the Ashes ... of Creation, that is.

Intrepid Studios' Ashes of Creation is a Kickstarter-ed sandbox MMO that recently added a battle royale mode. It was supposed to be just a way to test PvP and not make it into the final version of the game, its creator said, but, following some confusion and pushback from the community, castle sieges, horde mode, and battle royale will be moved into their own "side arena" -- and it will be free-to-play.

The testing arena will be called Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse, and it will be available for everyone to play, even if they didn't back Ashes of Creation. The story behind this new build is that it takes place before the great cataclysm that affects the "main" game. The primary reasons for this split are to "mitigate the confusion" regarding the different game modes and for rewards in Apocalypse to be carried over to the main MMORPG, which Intrepid head Steven Sharif stressed repeatedly was the "flagship" product for his company.

We'll see how that last part plays out. We've already seen multiple instances of a game being overshadowed by a "side" battle royale game that explodes in popularity until the "main" game is completely overshadowed or simply dies off. Not that Sharif and Intrepid want that to happen to Ashes of Creation, but they should expect that it's at least a possibility.

(Hat-tip to MassivelyOP for the original story)