Wild Arena Survivors Review: One Island, One Fight, One Survivor
While the battle royale genre has hooked me in heavily in recent years, I have to admit that after spending many seasons and thousands of hours fighting to be the last one standing, it's been hard staying excited over new releases in this saturated genre. I'm always looking for something new, though, something I’ve never seen that might reignite the fire that started it all. Wild Arena Survivors just might be that game.
Ubisoft’s Wild Arena Survivors is the newest free-to-play battle royale game, with forty players on one island fighting to the death until one player or group remains. The game features a range of unique playable characters, all with upgradable perks that provide combat boosts. With a loot-and-shoot system, resource farming mechanics, and castable abilities, Wild Arena Survivors sets itself apart from other battle royale titles with a cartoonish look and an isometric perspective.
Image Credited to Wild Arena Survivors | Ubisoft
I think the hardest thing to grasp about Wild Arena Survivors was that it doesn't feel entirely like a battle royale game. Don't get me wrong, I still had to battle tons of other players to achieve victory, but it didn't remind me of any other mobile battle royale I've ever played before. There are ways in which Wild Arena Survivors resembles an amalgam of Fortnite and Brawl Stars, but it’s impossible to pin down as a blatant copy. Ubisoft did a great job making Wild Arena Survivors a surprisingly new experience, especially in such a crowded playing field.
The first time you launch Wild Arena Survivors, you’ll receive the option to choose your first character to play out of the pool. Then you're introduced to its game modes: solos, trios, and free. Free mode allows you to practice movement and combat in a danger-free environment, while the other modes offer single-player or team combat, respectively. Sadly trios and free mode are temporarily unavailable, so I didn't get the chance to play them.
Image Credited to Wild Arena Survivors | Ubisoft
Wild Arena Survivors's character system primarily focuses on collecting characters and upgrading their perks to make them stronger. This means opponents with higher-level characters will most likely win in one-on-one combat.
Every character has a unique combination of weapons that only they can use. More generic add-on equipment, like kunais or bear traps, can be acquired by looting on the island, but your character is limited to their weapon specialization. So for example, if you’re playing a character that specializes in shovels and bows, you can’t suddenly pick up an assault rifle.
Image Credited to Wild Arena Survivors | Ubisoft
The character system in Wild Arena Survivors has some similarities to Brawl Stars, wherein the higher you level your character, the more HP and damage potential they have. But to Wild Arena Survivors’s credit, I never ran into any major upgrade walls where I'd have to grind hours and hours just to get enough resources to level up once. I’d only have to spend a little more on upgrades, but with how many resources every game gave me, it wasn’t too time-consuming.
I found upgrading perks in Wild Arena Survivors relatively easy, though it did get pricier with each level. I didn't notice a major spike in power when my character or their perks reached higher levels, though, even against other players that had lower levels. But maybe that's just because I was having so much fun playing the game.
Image Credited to Wild Arena Survivors | Ubisoft
Outside of the character progression mechanics, Wild Arena Survivors's gameplay is relatively straightforward. As a survivor, you drop onto an island with nothing but the two weapons your character specializes in the game. My preferred character, Sgt. Seung, began each match with a katana and a handgun, which gave me a head start on less well-equipped enemies. After landing, you'll need to either loot chests across the map that drop resources, weapons, and equipment, or break trees, stones, and boxes to acquire materials to upgrade your weapons. Each character also has abilities that upgrade alongside their specialized weapons. So if I enhanced Sgt. Seung's katana, her blade dash skill would upgrade alongside it and deal more damage.
The goal is to essentially get your weapon kit to the highest upgrade tier possible and survive by moving inside the zone's safe circle. I tend to take my time farming in these games, so I especially appreciated the ability to rush quickly inside the zone by riding a horse. Yes, there are horses, and you can make them appear out of thin air by tapping a button to whistle. It takes a few seconds to summon, but I'd always call my horse in when I was in a safe position. But I needed to be wary as others players can hear me whistle my horse into combat, alerting them of my intent and position.
Image Credited to Wild Arena Survivors | Ubisoft
It’s been a while since I’ve really been pulled in by a totally new battle royale—I’m not counting Apex Legends Mobile, since that’s an adaptation of an existing game. But Wild Arena Survivors was a unique experience that I enjoyed playing straight through the night. Even in its current soft launch state, I didn't notice any significant issues with the game at all. There were actual players in lobbies that would keep matches refreshing; I wasn’t forced to sit through any ads in-between matches; even the microtransactions were reasonably priced and didn’t feel pushed onto me. I'd genuinely recommend Wild Arena Survivors to anyone, battle royale fan or not. It’s definitely moving into my regular battle royale rotation moving forward.
SCORE: 5 STARS OUT OF 5
PLAY IF YOU LIKE:
• Brawl Stars. If you love Brawl Stars and all the adorable characters, you'll enjoy Wild Arena Survivors' expansive list of survivors to use and reign over others on the island.
• Fortnite. Like Fortnite's resource farming mechanic, Wild Arena Survivors allows you to harvest trees, rocks, and boxes to upgrade weapons with the collected resources. If you enjoy Fortnite's comparable game mechanic, you'll love Wild Arena Survivors.
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