Radical Heights - A Free Early Access Battle Royale Shooter

Radical Heights

In case you've been living under a rock, you know of the various, and incredibly popular, "battle royale" shooters, such as Fortnite and Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. Well, there is a new one in the mix: Radical Heights.

Radical Heights is currently being developed by Boss Key Productions, the same team behind gravity-defying first person shooter Lawbreakers. After the varying success of Lawbreakers, Boss Key Productions has decided to step into the biggest fad in game development right now: Battle Royale, where the last player standing wins all of the glory. The game has received mixed reviews, due to the game being Early Access, therefore containing lots of areas for improvement.

Radical Heights has many of the mechanics that you would expect from other battle royale shooters, such as large landscapes to explore, loot to pick up, weapons and gear to use, teams to form, and vehicles to ride. One of the immediate differences, however, is the aesthetics of the game. Everything in the game is wrapped in a flashy 80s-era theme, from the cosmetics to the game show style events.

The game also tries to stand out by implementing a banking system, where during a match, you can deposit cash picked up throughout the round into your character's digital bank account, which can be spent on cosmetics and weapons once the round is over.
There are also a unique set of gadgets that can be used to turn the tide of a match, such as a deploy-able trampoline, which the player can use to get a tactical advantage during a gunfight.

However, it isn't all good. I personally view this as Boss Key hopping on the bandwagon in a way, due to the major success of previous battle royale titles. There are definitely some innovations on the formula, but is it enough to sustain itself and stand out? The game is still very early in development, so if you decide to give it a try, expect framerate issues, optimization issues, and long loading times. But some players' complaints are with some design choices of the game, rather than the excusable bugs. The announcer that speaks through the match can be annoying, the movement can feel clunky and slow, the arrangement of loot is uneven, etc.

But take all of this with a grain of salt, as this game is very early access and Boss Key has a long way to go if they hope for the success of their newest project to reach the same radical heights as Fortnite and PUBG. I'm sure throughout development, many of these aspects are sure to change, and hopefully improve.

The game was released on April 10th and is free to play on Steam if you would like to try it for yourself!

Thank you for reading!

• @noahNewline