The Battle Royale genre has swept the world of gaming with titles like Fortnite: Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds raking in the revenue. It’s become such a game-changer that publishers like EA are intrigued by the idea of implementing it into one of their big titles. But what about Take Two Interactive?
The publisher had its recent quarterly financial report and during an earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick said it’s been “really interesting” seeing the response to Battle Royale titles. That being said, if its games were to ever incorporate the mode, it would do its own thing rather than being “derivative”.
“I would just observe that someone else’s success is really interesting and we are obviously informed by what our competitors do. But our goal is to be as innovative as possible. And titles, even really good titles that are derivative, never seem to do as well as innovations that are unexpected,” said Zelnick.
He provided the example of Red Dead Redemption, noting that conventional wisdom at the time dictated that “Westerns don’t work. It had been an awfully long time since a Western-themed video game had come out. Rockstar took a massive creative risk and the result was extraordinary.”
That being said, if fans want a PUBG-style experience, the company would look into something for them. “Of course we play in the world and we’re informed by what’s going on. It is our job to bring consumers what they want.”
The Battle Royale discussion is especially interesting since recent leaked documents from Trusted Reviews indicate the mode coming to Red Dead Redemption 2. There’s no real information on whether this mode is a Last Man Standing variant but it did have people extremely curious if Rockstar would go in this direction.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently slated to release on October 26th for Xbox One and PS4.