You’re almost required to dash and zip around the battlefield to get the advantage over your enemies. But while most games in the genre implement mobility as a secondary or tertiary element, Naraka: Bladepoint makes movement a core pillar of its design. Movement is a staple mechanic in battle royales, particularly in popular ones like Apex Legends and Fortnite. In this way, grappling hooks are a combo mechanic in their own right, letting you slip in and out of combat with ease to either maintain pressure or get your bearings.īlocking is always a viable tactic when dealing with a relentless foe, but by making use of the momentum you gain from grappling hooks, you can duck out, leaving your opponent disoriented, then jump back in to fuck them up. Say you’re getting sliced to bits by someone with a greatsword - you can use a grappling hook, which you can carry up to six at a time, to zip to the top of a nearby tree to replenish your armour and health, then grapple onto that same enemy to do a flying slash attack before initiating a combo of your own. While primarily thought of as traversal equipment, grappling hooks can also be used in the middle of combat. You can find grappling hooks all over the map: in random chests, on corpses, sitting atop destructible counters in buildings, etcetera. I know there are enemies over there… (Image: 24 Entertainment) That’s where grappling hooks come into play. With a variety of iaido techniques - in which you quickly draw your sword to slash - and unpredictable sword swipes, katanas can no doubt cut you to a million pieces. Take my personal favourite weapon, the katana. When wielded by skilled warriors, most can decimate health bars thanks to their vast movelists. So while you might be inclined to play Naraka: Bladepoint like a traditional battle royale, setting up shop to snipe enemies from afar, finding success in this game means staining your hands and weapons with blood.īut even if you don’t consider the mechanical tug-of-war between the attack types, the weapons are absolutely lethal. Besides, all your skills are tied to melee attacks. You can, of course, pull out a crossbow or pistol to pelt your enemies from a distance, but ranged weapons don’t do nearly as much damage as melee weapons can. There’s a rock-paper-scissors dynamic at play here, with charged attacks beating out normal attacks, normal attacks stomping parries, and parries besting charged attacks. Things can get real hectic real quick, especially if you don’t take into consideration the weapons you and your enemies have. You do this by scouring the map for loot: colour-graded weapons, armour and health upgrades, grappling hooks for both combat and traversal, various stat-boosting potions - typical battle royale stuff.Īfter gearing up and avoiding any potential ambushes while doing so, you can then test your equipment against the game’s plethora of enemies as you aren’t just fighting other players or bots, but also occasionally world foes such as giant, multi-armed Buddhist statues or big-arse dragons. Once you drop onto Morus Isle, the main map all battles take place on, it’s up to you (in either solo, duos, or trios) to survive long enough to be the last one standing. You start each game by selecting one of over a dozen customisable characters, each with their own stats and special abilities. Melee for the win, grapple for the escape But the majority of your gameplay will be up close and personal combat encounters with folks trying to beat you to death with a melee weapon. There are ranged weapons as well, including bows and cannons and muskets. In Naraka, you fight against other players ( or bots in the game’s dedicated mode if you don’t want to get bodied by better gamers) with a variety of close-range weapons ranging from dual blades and katanas to nunchakus and staffs. Picture Devil May Cry in something like PUBG and you’ve got a good idea. However, what sets Naraka apart from other battle royales is its focus on combo-laden melee combat. You’ve got your standard battle royale construction here: Load up onto a map with 59 other players, all vying to be the last one standing as an ever-shrinking circle seeks to poison everyone. That’s a lotta PR speak jumbled together, so let me break it down a little bit. Launched in 2021 for PC before making the jump to Xbox in 2022, Naraka: Bladepoint is a melee-focused, momentum-based martial arts battle royale. Read More: Welcome To Kotaku Royale, Exploring The Genre That’s Defining Modern Gaming It’s called Naraka: Bladepoint, and it rules. While battle royales may be ubiquitous, there’s one you probably aren’t playing right now that you totally should. From first-person shooters like Warzone to ( now-defunct) third-person spellcasters such as Spellbreak, the genre has overtaken the industry.
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