When we covered Pearl Abyss’ second quarter financial report a few weeks ago, one of the things that stood out to me is that the company does not appear to be giving up on Shadow Arena, its battle royale effort that hit early access back in May. Here in the west, the game started off with 5000 concurrent players but has steadily dropped; Steam Charts reports it’s running a peak of just over 500 bodies in the last month.
Nevertheless, the studio is still pumping out content for the game, most recently the rival system.
“The Rival System is a new system that allows players to compete and grow against opponents who have similarly ranked during Ranked Matches. If players either directly take out or outrank their Rival in a match, additional Ranking Points will be given even if they do not win the game. Moreover, it will be easy to spot a Rival as a new function will notify players when their Rival is nearby. The new Master Tier has also been added to Shadow Arena. With this addition, a total of 8 Tier placements are now available in the game. Diamond Players who survive for the longest time with more than 8 kills in a promotional match will be promoted to a Master.”
The latest press release further notes that the current battle pass runs through September 17th and that the devs are working on a 5v5 mode, a deathmatch mode, and a replay tool.
