Earlier this month, LawBreakers developer Boss Key Productions – helmed notably by Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski – announced a new game dubbed Radical Heights.
In “X-TREME Early Access,” the game quickly grabbed headlines not only because of its stealth-launch, but because it was the latest to step into the ring that is the battle-royale genre.
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Despite being relatively bare-bones given its early access nature, and despite the battle-royale genre being ruled by the biggest thing in video games right now, Fortnite (with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds not far behind), Radical Heights garnered considerable traction and attention. It wasn’t off to the fastest start, but it surely wasn’t off to a bad one either.
However, since then, a lot of that attention and traction seems to have dissipated. Just two weeks after its release, Radical Heights’ player base has dropped 82 percent. More specifically, on day two its peak player count was about 12,500 players, but as of April 25th, it was only a mere 2,200 players.
It’s worth noting that it isn’t unusual for player counts to fall after launch week , however, when you factor in the game’s free-to-play nature and newish status, 82 percent is a pretty steep drop. Given that Radical Heights is not only a multiplayer game, but a battle-royale game, maintaining a healthy-sized player count is extremely important.
As for what this means for Radical Heights in the long-term, who knows, it’s too early to really say. Player opinion of the game is mostly positive, and it’s still prominent amongst numerous popular Twitch streamers, the latter being increasingly a key ingredient to success these days.
Maybe Radical Heights will be the next big thing in the battle-royale genre, or maybe it will meet a similar fate to LawBreakers. One thing is for sure: competition within the genre is stiff, and is only going to get more so. Beyond juggernauts Fortnite and PUBG, there’s Darwin Project, the re-emergence of H1Z1, and others on the way.
Radical Heights is available on PC via Steam Early Access. When a full release will come, hasn’t been divulged. Further, console versions remain up in the air.
