What are the best battle royale games? There’s nothing quite like the thrill of surviving till the final circle, hoping that you’ll manage to outsmart your opponent for a well-earned victory royale. The best battle royale games deliver that and more, often packing new twists on the genre and stellar gameplay on a moment to moment basis.
These days, the battle royale game genre is overstuffed with entries, making it hard to find which ones are worth your time. The good news is we’ve made it easier to pick your next drop. Some of these titles are so good they’re on our best Xbox games and best PS5 games lists, with many being some of the best free shooting games right now too. So, here are the top battle royale games you can play right now.
The best battle royale games are:
1. Fortnite
Fortnite wasn’t the first battle royale game around, but it may as well have been. It started as a game that put the focus on building structures from resources, allowing it to stand out among the standard military-sim-like battle royales, but quickly turned into something a lot bigger.
These days, it’s the game’s remarkable content output that it’s best known for. Epic Games has worked with so many brands, bringing in crossovers from giant IPs like Marvel and Star Wars – it could technically be classed as one of the best Star Wars games – to fashion icons like Balenciaga and Nike, all the way to, well, pretty much anything you can think of.
Fortnite offers both the standard battle royale mode as well as a zero-build mode for those who dislike the mechanic and just want to enjoy Fortnite’s movement and gunplay in a purer form. If you’re an OG player then we recommend dropping into the latter if you don’t want the Burj Khalifa built on you every time you so much as breathe on another player – it’s impressive.
With that said, plenty of other launch players are hopping back aboard the Battle Bus – a staggering 3,900,000 had reportedly punched their ticket in early November 2023 – thanks to the arrival of Fortnite OG. Throughout the season, Epic has been unvaulting content from years past, including weapons, items, and even fan-favorite POIs. As such, now’s the perfect time to brush up on your building skills while many players are in the same boat. Even if you’re playing for the first time, it’s a great opportunity to get a feel of how far the battle royale game has come.
Fortnite is available for free on all major platforms.
2. Apex Legends
Apex Legends remains a triumph of shadow drops. Released out of the blue in 2019, it’s become one of the most exhilarating shooters around thanks to an excellent movement system – Titanfall fans, this is one for you – a diverse roster of ability-stuffed characters that constitute the Apex Legends tier list, and some of the best gunplay in gaming.
While the competitive Apex Legends ranked experience is solely based around the traditional battle royale, Apex has expanded its offering massively when it comes to alternative game modes. If you’re a sucker for cosmetics, the game also boasts some of the most stunning content in that department too.
As you can see from our Apex Legends Season 19 release date guide for the current content cycle, developer Respawn regularly freshens things up with new Legends, maps (as well as POI tweaks to existing ones), and weapons. Respawn also does an excellent job of balancing the battle royale game’s characters, ensuring that regular parses are done to prevent Legends from being egregiously overpowered for too long.
Apex Legends is available for free on all major platforms.
3. Naraka Bladepoint
Have you ever played a battle royale game and thought: ‘This is good and all, but what if we all had swords and spears, and it was also filled with waifus and husbandos?’ Maybe you haven’t, but having read that, it sounds pretty good, right? We’re not saying that Naraka Bladepoint is the battle royale for weebs, but it certainly fills a niche.
Instead of focusing purely on ranged weapons like so many competitive battle royales, Naraka Bladepoint goes hard on melee combat, parkour-inspired movement, and absurd abilities like becoming a god for a few seconds. In many situations, it’s gameplay actually feels more like a fighting game or a hack-and-slash RPG, which is super refreshing. There’s also loads of visual customization for the impressive roster of characters too.
Once a paid premium release, Naraka Bladepoint has since gone totally free to play, and that means there’s always a healthy playerbase to keep those wait times for matches low.
4. Fall Guys Ultimate Knockout
Violence is all good and well, but sometimes you don’t want to be responsible for the death of hordes of other players. Sometimes, you just want to run around as a giant jelly bean and try and survive as the level itself tries to kill you off. Well, if that’s what you’re after, then Fall Guys Ultimate Knockout is the game for you.
Fall Guys offers a simple joy that isn’t easily matched by the other games on this list, and coming away with a win and a literal crown is a wonderful experience. Based on classic game shows like Takeshi’s Castle and Total Wipeout, Fall Guys is one of the best multiplayer games out there and is among our favorites to play with friends and family.
Similarly to Fortnite, Fall Guys has turned to popular culture for many of its cosmetics, teaming up with iconic franchises like Alien, Star Trek, and even Vocaloid – that’s right, there’s a Miku bean out in the wild and we’re not sure how to feel about it, either.
Fall Guys is available for free on all major platforms.
5. Super Animal Royale
Super Animal Royale might not be a game you’ve heard of, but as it’s free-to-play, it’s definitely one you should add to your library. It has all the classic staples of the genre with 64 players being dropped into a top-down 2D battlefield to try and find the best loot, and then be the best shot.
The perspective and cutesy look of the world make it a nice change of pace for many players, and it’s got some really great weapons and tools too.
Super Animal Royale is available for free on all major platforms.
6. PUBG Battlegrounds
Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, is now called PUBG Battlegrounds. We’re not 100% on the name change, but it doesn’t eliminate the fact that this was the first battle royale game to really make itself known to the wider world.
It’s a little more serious in places than something like Fortnite, but the hallmarks of the genre basically started here. From the first celebratory chicken dinner to that first frying pan kill, PUBG Battlegrounds’ charm has persevered even though its popularity has waned over the years.
PUBG Battlegrounds is available for free on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
7. Realm Royale
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you shoved Fortnite and World of Warcraft into a blender – we wouldn’t know why you would, but bear with us – then Realm Royale is the result.
The brainchild of Smite – that’s one of the best MOBA games if you didn’t know – developer Hi-Rez, Realm Royale consists of five unique classes, each boasting specific weapons and abilities. While abilities used to be a little more fast and loose, 2022’s Reforged update better defined the role each one plays during a match.
Realm Royale has a couple of fun twists on traditional mechanics that help it stand out from the pack. For example, taking the saying ‘winner winner, chicken dinner’ arguably too literally, you’re transformed into a chicken when you die, granting an opportunity to automatically revive as long as you don’t get clucked up within the timeframe. Meanwhile, players can upgrade their gear at forges jotted across the map, similar to Apex’s Replicators.
Realm Royale is available for free on all major platforms.
8. CRSED FOAD
Formerly known as ‘Cuisine Royale’, CRSED FOAD is a bit of a weird mix-match of genres, with this being a massively multiplayer online battle royale. Combining realistic weaponry with mystical powers, this is one of the more unconventional, but certainly fun, battle royale games.
You can choose between tackling enemies head-on, or sneaking past firefights to ensure your victory, but be warned; this is not an easy game to master, and you won’t be able to avoid conflict forever because of some rather gnarly mechanics.
You see, there are abilities and there are CRSED FOAD abilities. In this battle royale, you can do everything from conducting ancient rituals to flooding the entire map as if you’re some sort of god-like entity. We can’t stress how entertaining it is to flush someone out, before one-banging them with a frying pan underwater – you need to try it if you do dive in.
CRSED FOAD is available for free on all major platforms.
9. Tetris 99
If you thought regular Tetris was tricky, try playing Tetris while 98 other players are furiously trying to ruin your day. The esport experience you didn’t think you needed, Tetris 99 takes the classic experience and turns it into one of the best battle royales around.
During each game, you’ll be able to see the boards of your fellow players – we say players but mean targets. As you complete badges, you’ll gain the ability to send garbage grey lines to others, potentially thwarting their block-slotting plans. As with any battle royale, the last player Tetris-ing (that’s definitely a word) wins.
While we find Tetris a stressful enough experience – it’s not a skill issue, we just never get the piece we need… – Tetris 99 turns it into absolute bedlam in the best possible way.
Tetris 99 is available on Nintendo Switch only.
10. Forza Horizon 5 The Eliminator
A purely racing-based battle royale that doesn’t involve giant torpedos strapped to them sounds like it shouldn’t work in practice, but Forza Horizon 5’s The Eliminator mode is very good – it wouldn’t be on our best battle royale games list if it wasn’t.
At the start of a session, you’ll be dropped into an arena with a circle that progressively shrinks over its course, and get given a sluggish, bottom-of-the-pile car. Throughout, you’ll be able to challenge other drivers to 1v1 sprint races. The winner can either steal their opponent’s car or choose to upgrade their own, while the loser is eliminated. If you’re struggling to find someone to challenge, then you can also upgrade your car by getting a Car Drop – a vehicle that’s dropped in like a care package throughout the game.
While you can sit tight, praying that you don’t come into contact with another vehicle, the whole point of Forza is to race and dominate, so strap in and take down anyone who crosses your path on Xbox – it’s the surest way of securing victory, after all.
11. Call of Duty Warzone
Call of Duty, regardless of your feelings about the stories it tells, is undoubtedly one of the best FPS game franchises in existence – our Call of Duty MW3 review can attest to that. It features the kind of gunplay that comes from countless devs and their cumulative experience, and Warzone takes all of that and transplants it into the battle royale genre.
In Warzone you and up to 150 other players drop into one of the Warzone maps – including MW3’s Urzikstan map – and, in true battle royale game style, have to battle it out for supremacy using a broad array of weapons and vehicles to your advantage. Although it doesn’t quite have the rapid parkour action of Apex Legends, Warzone remains a high-tempo experience, so keep your wits about you.
Warzone constantly evolves as new entries in the main series are released, with the new best Warzone guns weapons shaking up the Warzone meta. So good is the gunplay that we’d argue Warzone has the best feeling weapons of all battle royales.
Call of Duty Warzone is available for free on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
12. Battlefield V Firestorm
Before Warzone came along and stole its thunder, Battlefield V’s Firestorm mode was one of the initial places to get a battle royale thrill in a major FPS franchise. It is a little rough around the edges compared to some of its genre rivals, but Firestorm can genuinely be a blast when it shines.
Backed up by Battlefield’s more precise gunplay and heavier combat, you won’t be slide-cancelling or bunny hopping around the map like Warzone. Team work is key, so be sure to rally up your best buddies. You’ll need a copy of Battlefield V to access Firestorm, though.
Battlefield V is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S via backwards compatibility.
So there you have it, all of the best battle royale games in one place. If some of these are too competitive for you, you can always check out the best PS5 co-op games and best Xbox co-op games for something to play with friends.
However, if you’ve got that competitive itch, then be sure to give yourself the best possible chance of victory by investing in one of the best PS5 controllers or best Xbox controllers. After all, having hair trigger locks can be the difference between getting your shot off or being sent back to the lobby. Have fun!