Video Game / Battlerite

aka: Battlerite Royale

From left to right: Sirius, Freya, Raigon

Battlerite is a multiplayer online Action Game developed by Stunlock Studios. The game is a Spiritual Successor to Bloodline Champions, and shares many similarities to it. Like its predecessor, Battlerite aims to provide an experience similar to a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game such as League of Legends or Dota 2, while removing many elements that slow down gameplay such as farming, gaining levels, respawning, and lanes, leaving only combat between players.

The primary game mode of Battlerite is Arena. The goal of this mode is simply to eliminate the enemy team before they eliminate yours. Each character has a normal attack, five special skills (including one Energy skill) and an Ultimate ability. Attacking the enemy or healing teammates gives your character Energy, which can be used to cast improved (EX) versions of two skills, to use the character's Energy skill, or saved up to unleash the character's Ultimate. To mix things up, an Orb will periodically appear in the center of the arena, which awards Energy and life bonuses to the team that destroys it.

The game's namesake is the Battlerite system. Each character can choose up to five Battlerites, which add specific effects and improvements to certain skills, ranging from increasing damage to reducing cooldowns to inflicting effects on allies or enemies.

Battlerite launched as paid early access in September 2016, and went free-to-play on November 8th 2017. Players who paid for early access get all characters unlocked for free automatically.

A side game, Battlerite Royale, features the cast of Battlerite fighting Battle Royale-style on Talon Island to be the last one standing. Cosmetics and currencies are carried between both games, but Champions need to be unlocked separately. It became free-to-play on February 19 2019.

Visit the game's official website here, read the dev blog here, or get the game on Steam here. The Book Of Lore, which provides details on each character's story, is here.

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Tropes found in the main game

• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Chests are awarded for completing weekly quests, leveling up champions, or being purchased with in-game or premium currency. These chests award outfits, weapons (which only affect the weapon's appearance), victory poses, and mounts.
• Anti-Rage Quitting: Players are liable to react to a player disconnecting by having someone on the larger team sit out of the fight (until some other point, which is far less consistent - after one of their own team dies, after the enemy team has a chance to equal up their health to the refraining player, never...) to encourage the remaining smaller team's players to stay from having a chance to still play and win, despite the game having a forfeit mechanic when a team is considered to be missing a player and the AFK-sensor determining that can make things a little bit more difficult for the refraining player. This behaviour was probably carried over from Bloodline Champions.
• Ascended Meme: On top of being a Take That! to Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), Croak's "Dab of Pride and Accomplishment" pose is a reference to a minor meme requesting that Croak's Dab be made Legendary.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Most characters' ultimate ability is this. Sure, they tend to have big flashy effects and deal lots of damage if they land, but that's if they land. If your opponents still have their escape ability off cooldown, or your ultimate can trigger Counter Attacks or be reflected, you've just blown your whole energy meter on nothing. Although the ultimates can be devastating if you save them until your opponents have used up their escapes and counters, it's usually better to just use your energy on EX and Energy skills.
• Comeback Mechanic:
  • The center Orb's effect are doubled if you claim it while you're the last surviving member of your team.
  • Allies drop their Energy upon death, rounded up to the nearest multiple of 25.
  • For each ally that dies, you gain one use of Overload, which boosts your damage and speed, but also damage taken.
• Counter-Attack: Very common among characters are "Counter" abilities which activate some sort of effect after an enemy strikes them as it's active.
• Essence Drop: As a form of a Comeback Mechanic, a player that is killed drops an orb which heals some of an ally's health if they pick it up, and gives them energy based on the energy they had before they died, scaling up in brackets of 25%.
• Exploding Barrels: Exists in Royale and some Arena maps. Additionally, they can be a particularly Exploited Trope as an item in Royale that can be placed to create a trap for other players, or a consumable in Arena which has a player outright roll it in a direction to hopefully spectacularly explode nearby an enemy player (but don't be too close to it on impact).
• Expy: Almost every character is based off a character from Bloodline Champions.
• EX Special Attack: The cost 25 or 50 Energy and share a cooldown with their regular version. Many have significantly different effects; for example, Ruh Kaan's Shadow Strike (a forward lunge attack) becomes Reaping Scythe (a Spin Attack).
• Friendly Fireproof: There's only one way to hurt your allies with your own abilities, and that's if the enemy reflects one of yours back to them, which makes it "their" ability from that point.
• Guide Dang It!: Whether or not an ability triggers counters can be tricky to determine. The general rule is that single-target abilities can be countered, and AoE skills can't, but there are plenty of exceptions: Pestilus' Infest is a single-target ability that goes through counters, and Rook's Crushing Blow procs them despite being an AoE attack. There is nothing in-game that reliably indicates whether or not an ability can be countered, so the only way to learn is through trial and error.
• Kill Steal: The center orb gives a significant Energy and life bonus to the team that destroys it, but only the last hit counts. Even if you remove nearly all the Orb's health, it will all be for naught if an enemy player lands the last hit.
• Invulnerable Attack: Pretty common. If it makes a champion quickly move directly to a location, odds are pretty good they're literally invincible while that's happening, letting them dodge attacks or even ignore damage-over-time effects while doing it.
• Play Every Day: You get 50 Battlecoins for logging in each day, and can complete a daily quest for more. Upon reaching account level 5, you can sign a sponsor, who will grant you rewards upon completing enough daily quests.
• Powers as Programs: Downplayed Trope with Battlerites, which are equipped to every champion for a match. Usually, they'll improve the effect of an ability, while sometimes adding a new effect or rarely even adding another small ability activatable after activating the ability initially.
• Schizo Tech: The level of technology is all over the place, from primitive (Rook) all the way up to blatant Science Fiction (Destiny), and everything in-between (Raigon is medieval, Jade has early modern firearms).
• Status Effects: Many, with some being unique to certain characters.^note For simplicity's sake, only effects usable by a variety of characters will be put here
  • Stun: Cannot move or cast abilities
    • Incapacitate: Similar to Stun. Duration is typically longer than Stun, but can end prematurely if damage is dealt
    • Petrify: Similar to Stun, but gain a shield. Duration is typically longer than Stun, but can end early if the shield is broken.
  • Panic: Target runs directly away from the source, unable to use abilities or control their movement. Can end early if enough damage is dealt.
  • Root: Cannot move. Can still cast abilities.
  • Snare: Movement speed is slowed.
    • Fading Snare: Similar to Snare, but movement speed slowly returns to normal instead of coming back all at once.
  • Damage Over Time: Take damage over a set time period. The target cannot die this way.
  • Weaken: Reduces healing and damage output.
  • Silence: Cannot cast spells.
  • Blind: Vision is reduced to a small radius around the target.
    • Fading Blind: Similar to Blind, but vision slowly returns instead of coming back all at once.
• Take That!: The "Dab of Pride and Accomplishment"◊ pose for Croak, to the infamous response by EA to the controversy of hero unlock requirements in Star Wars Battlefront II (2017). It cannot be randomly obtained in chests.
• Victory Pose: Can be unlocked from chests. After winning a round, all members of the winning team are shown in their victory pose, with the round's MVP being put front and center.

Tropes found in Battlerite Royale

• Animorphism: Some items temporarily transform your character into an animal with special abilities:
  • The Rabbit Potion transforms you into a rabbit that can kick enemies into walls and run fast.
  • The Sheep Medallion activates when you die and revives you as a sheep. If you can survive for a few seconds in this form, you return to your normal form, having successfully avoided death.
  • The Raging Moose Mask turns you into a moose that can charge at enemies to damage them, on top of giving you a shield. If the shield breaks, the transformation ends early.
• Artifact Title: The game's namesake Battlerite mechanic is not present in this version, although Legendary abilities come with bonus effects that emulate them in some ways.
• Feathered Dragons: The Storm Wyverns that players ride at the start of each game are furry serpents with feathered wings and wolf heads.
• Metal Slime: Goblins can be found carrying bags of loot. Once you hit them, they'll (slowly) flee from you while a timer counts down above them. Kill them, and you get some very good item drops. If the timer runs out, they'll disappear and you get nothing.

Tropes from the Book of Lore

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The following line from Ezmo's Book Of Lore:
  The Xeridion Warlocks were a not-so-secret society of shadow mages who congregated weekly to discuss the latest in villainous and contemptuous ongoings in the city of Toleen, show off their latest demonic summonings, and sample a rather overpriced selection of fine cheeses.
• Dragons Are Divine: Xoranvar's avatar in the physical world is a Storm Wyvern (the same that drops you onto the map in Royale).
• Easter Egg: Press the keys p, e, a, r, and l sequentially while on the Battlerite lore map. Each key will play a word from Pearl's "Don't worry! I'm here now." voiceline and finishing the sequence will cause remove all of the links on the map to be replaced with lines and columns of Pearl's head spinning around.
• Go to Your Room!: In her story, Alysia is sent to her room with no supper during her birthday party for the "crime" of daring to protect a servant from being punished after tripping and spilling drinks.
• Muggles: Lucie's entry in the Book of Lore mentions that the people of Toleen are the only culture with no magic.
• Playing with Fire: The Tioko race worship The Living Shroud, an ancient flame that has burned for ages, and receive fire magic from it upon reaching adolescence. Ashka is their playable representative and Iva is also implied to be one of them, albeit without fire magic.
• Riddle Me This: In Freya's Book Of Lore entry, the first of the three challenges she must pass to become queen is answering a riddle. A wrong answer will be punished by a thousand years of agony as Freya is digested within the stomach of Akrohnis, Goddess of Worms and Snakes.
  When bound, it chooses serf or king. When spilled, it foretells war or woe. When boiled, it fuels lusts and furies. When freed, it tumbles, falls, and fades away forever. When it runs, death will often follow. ^Answer Blood
• Soul Jar: The Ark'dun achieve immortality by sealing their Verum within urns.
• Swamps Are Evil: The Swamp of Malevolence is home to all sorts of deadly beasts, cannibals, and haunted crypts.

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