Earlier this year, a studio called Automaton Games revealed its ambitious title, Mavericks, claiming its battle royale mode, Proving Grounds, can support up to 400 players. Crazier yet, some game modes, the studio says, will be able to facilitate up to 1,000 concurrent players.
At this year’s E3, we got our first taste of what the title’s gameplay will look like via a teaser trailer which you can check out below.
We were lucky enough to get a closer look at Mavericks during a behind closed doors session with the game’s developers, including an opportunity to jump into a quick round of battle royale. Before that, Automaton’s CEO James Thompson gave me a rundown of the tech that allows gamers to play together on such an enormous scale.
When talking about the mechanics of a multiplayer game, a lot of it comes down to what can be adequately handled by the servers it uses. Rather than a traditional approach, Mavericks will use SpatialOS, a platform that utilises cloud-based technology.
“The fundamental premise is that they provide a cloud networking layer which enables us to avoid a client-server approach to building a game,” he said. “So rather than a single server, we have multiple simulating different aspects or different areas of [the world].”
In other words, SpatialOS distributes certain aspects of what a single server would usually handle over many and controls what information is distributed and when. This boils down to a truly persistent game world where changes remain, scale increases, and player numbers skyrocket. Improbable – the folks behind the technology – put together a demo video explaining what’s possible when the platform is used in gaming. Check it out below.
But it’s not just about packing as many players as possible into a game, Thompson says, it’s all about the world in which they exist. “It’s about having more players, but also interacting more with the environment,” he said. “That’s actually what creates the game mode and the strategy of Mavericks.”
The way you’ll play Mavericks compared to current battle royale games is different because you’ll be able to use the world to your advantage. Persistent environments means players will leave tracks wherever they go, and if you track them all the way to a building, you’ll be able to blow the fucking walls off to get to them.
All these in-game factors will fundamentally change how you approach certain situations. For example, you’ll know if a player has passed peacefully through an area by seeing footprints in the grass, but a burnt-out section or spreading fire might indicate that they engaged in a firefight. Knowing the environment is changing based on your movements is a powerful behavioural influencer and will undoubtedly introduce far more gameplay variety into the genre.
Another area Mavericks will differ from other battle royale games like Fortnite and PUBG is story. While he didn’t divulge too much information, Thompson tells me there’s a reason the world exists and a capital that controls it all which will also become the game’s social hub. The narrative will expand and change based on player choices, something Thompson says will require constant updates from the development team.
“It’s quite a deep narrative that’s actually going to evolve into a full open world persistent MMORPG,” he said, adding that the session-based events like battle royale will become far more interesting in the broader context of the world in which they take place.
The capital will act as a substitute for traditional menus, becoming a kind of neutral hub where you can buy and sell items, customise your character, and hang out with other players if you’re into that sort of thing. Your clothing style, Thompson says, is actually “based on in-game progression” and will reflect what you’re good at in the game. This means achievements in modes such as battle royale can be shown visually as you receive them.
Ultimately, Automaton is looking to create a fluid, long-form version of what battle royale is known for right now. You’ll be able to drop in and out at any time and the world will continue to exist and evolve whether you’re there or not. This bigger picture Mavericks will be able to host up to 1,000 players in any given server.
While the details of this world are still quite scarce, it sounds like there’s a kind of Escape from Tarkov vibe where you’ll be able to “collect and extract gear” from the world, but if you die, whatever you had on you at the time is fair game.
After the presentation, I got to jump on and actually give the game a whirl. Starting out in the capital, I was eventually thrown into a battle royale match with 5 other players. To keep things quick, it started with a relatively small play area (no one has time to wander around an enormous map looking for 5 people) which continued to shrink, much like PUBG or Fortnite would.
While the trailer showed first-person gameplay, this alpha build only let me play in third-person, which, for the most part, felt pretty similar to other games in the genre. You run around, try not to get shot, and find better loot inside houses and buildings. Standard stuff. I made it to the final two, but ultimately got nailed by one of the game’s devs who was camping out behind a pile of logs. But hey, I got a few shots on him at least.
The match was brief and the build itself was far too early to give any meaningful indication of how it’s going to perform upon release, but it does feel like any other battle royale game doing the rounds right now. Until we get to step into a full 400-player or 1,000-player game, we simply won’t know if Automaton’s lofty ambitions will be realised. But if the team can deliver on its promises of an enormous persistent open world, it’s sure to be a phenomenal experience.
A closed beta for Proving Grounds begins at the end of August this year, opening up to more people through to the end of October where there’ll be a fully open beta. In December, players will be able to see the first instance of the games capital / social hub.
