Pirate crews sail and strife amidst an archipelago home to rare treasure. This treasure–the gemed brilliance of innovation–lies at the heart of Out of Reach: Treasure Royale, a new team-based Battle Royale from developer Space Boat Studios and publisher PlayWay. Built from the survival co-op game Out of Reach, launched back in 2015, Out of Reach: Treasure Royale makes some fantastic mechanical choices in an ever-evolving Battle Royale industry.
In short, playing Out of Reach: Treasure Royale felt like playing Fortnite in its beta–a bit raw and unrefined, but brimming with potential due to its innovative core concepts. Building in Fortnite was revolutionary, and similarly racing around the map for key objectives to initiate a King of the Hill standoff to win the game in Out of Reach: Treasure Royale feels radically different from any other BR.
How does it play?
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale gives players the reigns to an authentic pirate romp–plundering islands for loot, getting into deadly skirmishes with rival vessels, and claiming glory in treasure. Each match begins with three players to a crew aboard a ship in search of treasures marked one at a time on your team’s map. Once a team collects three treasures they can then place them on an altar to initiate a five minute King-of-the-Hill victory scenario. If no other teams can kill your entire crew or put their treasures on the altar, then the game is over.
Typically, the early game consists of island hopping for loot. Small skirmishes with maybe one or two teams happen over the most valuable loot spots. Progressing into the mid-game will find players duking it out in the open seas, blasting their cannons and boarding the enemies ships en route to their marked treasures. The late game builds into a thunderdome of action with teams laying everything on the line for ultimate control of the kraken island.
Also, there is a gulag-type system where players become ghost pirates upon death, marooned out on a haunted island armed with only a pistol. Get a kill on this island and you have respawned yourself, die on this island and your team no longer can spend a treasure at an altar to resurrect you.
In Concept
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale could easily be a bland, hole-up on an island Battle Royale imitator, but its treasure seeking objectives and end-game invitation push it far beyond. Do you want players to have a clock working against them that isn’t just a closing circle of death? Do you want exploration and movement to keep each game exciting? Do you want combat to have meaningful risk and reward? Do you want games to end in climatic glory? Then take notes from Out of Reach: Treasure Royale and their treasure mechanic because that’s the secret sauce.
I compared playing this game to the early days of playing Fortnite because it reminds me so much of the shining cooperative element that’s wrapped around its unique core. Here, getting to captain a ship, be a lookout sniper, man the cannons, or even being the repairman works fantastic for group dynamics.
Late game especially ties together theme and mechanics. High tensions get soaked up in chugged rum barrels as the harrowing-green mist of the kraken island crests the horizon, surrounded by the ships of crews probably already resting in Davy Jones’ Locker. What follows is the language of beasts–madness, death, chaos, and perhaps you are around long enough to hear the cacophonous laughter of those left standing. Bravo to the design team.
In Execution
While Out of Reach: Treasure Royale earns much of its high praise, it also deserves some criticism in some key elements. Of course, a game based around running, shooting, and sailing should excel at those foundational aspects, but Out of Reach: Treasure Royale is just okay at pulling these off.
The gun combat offers good balance and variety–shotguns rule close range, rifles are lethal at long and mid range, and pistols offer a reliable secondary finisher–but the VX and the SFX don’t deliver visceral punches and the recoil patterns and bullet lag take some getting used to. Loot variance and quantity are both good, and there isn’t too much of a gap between power levels of the tiered loot where it ever feels unfair.
Despite not having the most fluid shooting, neither did (and arguably still doesn’t) our comparison, Fortnite. Games can compensate for their shortcomings by highlighting their strengths, and Out of Reach: Treasure Royale can do this while also working to tune the fluidity of their game.
Lack of Playerbase
At this point you may be thinking, “Well, Out of Reach: Treasure Royale seems like an innovative, engaging, and worthwhile experience for only $15 USD. I’m going to go enjoy this multiplayer game with either my friends or some random people online!” and that’s where you will be let down most. There just simply is not an active player base for this game that was released Oct. 14th, 2020, which is a shame.
Besides the developer planned events (where the game really shined), every game I’ve played online has less than 5 active players on the servers, meaning I never even got to play against a fully-human team. Bots have been instituted in order for a game to launch every 2 minutes, and while they are pretty decent bots, that doesn’t remedy this multiplayer game’s lack of players.
Conclusion
Putting a pirate theme to a battle royale is ripe for success: it puts players on a role-defined team, opens up both sea and land fighting, and already has players on the hunt for treasure. Out of Reach: Treasure Royale takes these basic tenets and applies them expertly to the Battle Royale genre by innovating objectives and end games to keep a dynamic pace of play. While it shines in concept, and somewhat lacks in its execution with sub-par shooting and movement, its true nemesis is its lack of players. Hopefully Out of Reach: Treasure Royale can pick up its much deserved traction.
Score: 8.5/10
Check Out the Out of Reach: Treasure Royale Trailer
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale is available for Windows PC via Steam.
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Steam Review
Recent Michigan State University grad and current Game Studies researcher who plays fantasy RPG's to escape, Smash to compete, and Stardew to chill. Also have a +1 to rage/toxicity resistance due to the many hours sunk into WoW, R6, and LoL.
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