Pearl Abyss has confirmed that its Black Desert battle royale spin-off Shadow Arena will be free to play from May 21st on Steam Early Access. Shadow Arena pits 40 players against each other in a melee brawl that mixes elements of RPG and MOBA, where farming AI monsters for some experience as well as looting gear is needed. Alongside that characters have abilities that can be used against enemies too but these all require cooldowns before they can be used again.
Stefan recently went hands-on with Shadow Arena and wrote:
The characters, all of which have been drawn from Black Desert, can sometimes feel a bit unbalanced with the heftier warriors able to charge in with slow, but wide sweeping attacks and abilities that can easily knockdown opponents in a manner that feels difficult to recover from. As an archer, Orwen also struggles, as her chip damage from range doesn’t really do much when enemies can so easily close the gap and start gleefully battering you. Pearl Abyss have rebalanced the characters for this final beta, but some certainly feel disadvantaged through their fundamental skillset.
There’s a lot of interesting ideas at play in Shadow Arena, and this could be a battle royale that suits fans of Black Desert, MMORPGs and MOBAs. However, those same RPG and MOBA gameplay foundations also mean that it’s not quite as easy to pick up and play as the FPS-based battle royales out there.
You can read the full Shadow Arena preview here.
Source: Press Release
