The primary point of playing Shadow Arena is, presumably, to get some fantastical battle royale gaming in. But then Pearl Abyss stopped and said “What about deathmatch?” So with the latest update on PC, that’s just what players have gotten: team deathmatch mode.
This really is about as simple as it gets in terms of how things work. Deathmatch pits two teams of five players against one another in a fight for either 20 minutes or when one team scores more than 30 kills. Players can switch heroes when they respawn, but any skills must be relearned when they do, and there’s an NPC that can heal players for 10,000 HP when they stand near it that appears randomly in areas of the map. Rewards for taking on deathmatch include a guaranteed five Silver and five Hero Mastery Points per kill, along with 30 Silver and 10 Mastery Points if you’re on the winning team.
In addition to deathmatch, the latest update has added a Rookie Battle Pass that offers rewards like gobs of Silver, a title, and a seven day All Hero Pass for completing Ranked Solo play up to five times, as well as some changes to the Tournament system and several members of the hero roster.
Much of these updates assume players will be playing with one another, but even if you can’t find others to battle royale or deathmatch with, the game is still apparently a fun time even with bots. So that’s something at least.
