I had to put a blurb up about a new game that has captivated me for the last couple months. It's called Ring of Elysium on it's available on Steam and it’s free to play. There are seasons like many other games that cost about $10 US and it opens various skins throughout the season as you progress.

I was introduced to ROE by my cousin, it was still in early release, so I gave it a shot. Being a Battle Royal, I didn't know what to expect, I had not played PUBG or Fortnite, both of which were very popular in the Survival Shooter/Battle Royal genre. Once I started playing, I was caught; I put all my other games on the back burner. It’s very exciting and each round offers new surprises. There is one map available for season 1 called Mt. Dione, and it’s a snowy landscape with upto 60 players all trying to stay alive until a chopper comes and picks up who’s left alive, if any.

A quick and dirty overview is that 30-60 people start, and the map shrinks down or “collapses” at certain time intervals until the map is a fraction of the original size forcing players closer together. Those that do not make it to the designated areas are then damaged by the environment until they are dead or make it into the “safe zone”. There are buildings, vehicles and spots players can pick up equipment, upgrade existing equipment and engage other players as the map collapses. To win, a player (when playing solo) or team member (when playing duos/squads) must make a aboard the helicopter that comes to pick up the remaining players. There are 4 seats available and you can have multiple teams or solo players make is aboard if everyone is working together, but that is generally not common. More commonly than not, a single solo player makes is aboard in solos and a full team makes it in squads.

Each player decides to shoot it out with other players or try to be as sneaky as possible making it to the chopper without much of a fire fight, you have to choose your path carefully. The games rewards kills higher than just winning, so if you want to get into the top 100 you can’t shy away from a shootout. There is a balance but getting kills in the game is really important if you are trying to get ranked. After the first season I placed decently, I ended in the top 0.4% in First-person and top 0.3% in Thrird-person view.

Season 1 Stats

UPDATE Season 2
After the Season 2 update, there has been a good amount of limitation in play pushed by the devs. Now the game only allows a specific style of game play and that wasn't what I enjoyed about the game. I will not renew my adventure pass for the next season and it's a bummer, but it happens as games progress. In my opinion the devs just fell to pressures to change the game by players that was having a hard time keeping up. I ended season 2 in the top 100 at 54.

Season 2 Stats

UPDATE Season 13
I started playing again regularly during Season 13, and I set a goal to make it into the top 10 by the end of the season. This is not an easy task to achieve. I started strong making it up to #5 and once I was in the top 10, I stayed there until the end of the season; however, I did drop to #9, so I barely made it. It was quite satisfying to be honest, because the US servers is where everyone from around the world comes to play seriously. All servers use the same point systems and you can tell that people in the US come to play. Another reason why I came back is because they finally allowed players to change their name tag. I was going by Runando and I got to change it to _Redeemer_, which I have gone by for decades but the devs didn’t allow for underscores or special characters at early release. For my efforts, I was given silver wings next to my name during Season 14. This is a good and bad thing, because I have seen people react differently once they see my name and the silver wings saying they are playing with a “top 10” player. From now on, I think I will just be happy with top 100 because getting top 10 just takes up too much of my time. XD

Season 13 Stats