Chaoscraft versus encompasses three main modes, as well as several hardcore versus modes. Arena includes traditional 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 modes. TDM is a 5v5 bracket with its own specialized maps and rules. BR is designed as a radical innovation in Battle Royale, seeing the advent of a first-person skillshot-based fantasy trinity model breaking from standard industry design.
We see ranked versus being a competitive scene players cannot find anywhere else on the market. It combines elements of not only multiple genres and class types, but also clashing dimensional terrains and a seasonal system placing a strong emphasis on true Rank 1. There is a very simple way to put our philosophy on versus:
No frills. Just fighting.
Gladiator Tradition
Each new season, competitors around the world queue ranked versus in the bracket of their choice. Arena offers 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 brackets. TDM is a specialized 5v5 mode similar to Arena. BR sees twenty teams of three throw down on randomized maps.
On this page, we’ve laid out an overview of ranked Arena. We plan to release a minimum of three Arena maps in Early Access, possibly five. Each of the Named Maps has its own unique theme and architecture. Named Maps are contrasted by Mystery Maps, unknown venues of unpredictable design. We’ll discuss each type of map here.
Named Maps
When a solo or team queues Arena, it is matched against a solo or team of similar MMR. Competitors are transported to locked prep rooms. Here, they have 30 seconds to prepare for the match. When the timer expires, the doors open and the match begins.
Matches have a five minute duration. If no team is defeated at the match’s conclusion, the game is drawn. Drawn games are not decided by deaths or damage. To win a match, competitors eliminate their opposition.
We’re working on five main Named Maps for Early Access currently, in addition to five other Named Maps. Loading screen concepts can be found below, with short descriptions for each Arena for background here.
Martial Dojo
Four columns stand invincibly in the form of a perfect balanced square in this traditional dojo. With less space than one would like, competitors are forced to confront their foes in close quarters combat.
Sleepy Hollow
Dark purple twisting slopes dot the cavernous hills of this extradimensional arena. Pools of red bubble amidst the rolling gloom. Be careful. They burn.
Nether Twilight
A mystical platform floats suspended in blue glow. Stone pillars stand in hexagram shape, creating opportunities for quick tactical maneuvers. One can see only pervasive mist beyond the stone wall’s windows.
Scoundrel’s Hideaway
A small cobblestone death cage without any cover forces high-torque unavoidable encounters. In the shadows behind the metal, high-class silhouettes in fancy suits watch, awaiting the outcomes of their bets.
Wizard’s Sanctum
A wide metallic arena features four main twisting pillars and a central pillar between them. In the opaque spherical glass above, anonymous figures behold the battle, assessing the skill of each fighter.
Mystery Maps
As discussed in Dev Log I, Arena features two kinds of maps: Named Maps and Mystery Maps. In 50% of matches, competitors join a Named Map, with the teams known. In 50% of matches, competitors join a Mystery Map, with the teams unknown.
Mystery Maps represent a design innovation that breaks the established meta of known maps with known teams. Instead, competitors have no idea what the map will be, and teams are not known at all. When the doors open, the arena revealed is a fully randomized layout, one of potentially thousands of procedurally generated arenas. These Mystery Maps can be absolutely any kind of arena conceivable. Use your imagination and whatever you imagine is what they can be. They can be closed or open, with possible edges and risk of fall death. They can be artificial or natural terrains, of many, many types.
On Mystery Maps, classes of the enemy team remain hidden. One can only identify the enemy team’s comp visually, mid-match. This both makes it tougher to preplan a strategy and forces competitors to identify enemy comps on the fly. Mystery Maps are only one of the many experimental designs we plan for the future.
No matter what steps it takes, there are always opportunities to explore new kinds of technologies, techniques, and other options to ensure a game’s central integrity remains pure and untouched by flagrant rulebreakers.
5v5
TDM is an Arena-like 5v5 league with a specialized ruleset. When we use the term Team Deathmatch, we mean it in the literal sense, contrasting with the historical use of the term. Combatants do not respawn in TDM matches as they normally do in TDM modes. Instead, each team battles to the death on maps tailored to 5v5 showdowns.
Randomized Maps
Part of what makes Chaoscraft TDM so extraordinary is the game’s commitment to using wholly randomized maps. TDM features larger maps with a higher degree of verticality, cover, and tactical layout. In this way, it emulates the core design of popular 5v5 games while branching out into the unique territory of procedurally generated maps with totally unpredictable architecture.
This creates not only greater intrigue and difficulty, but a potential for significantly higher replay value. It is possible, in the future, we may see a mix of Named Maps and Mystery Maps in all three versus modes. The inclusion of Mystery Maps, combined with such a vast class selection and comp variability, sets the stage for a competitive game of unparalleled complexity and depth. TDM is not a straightforward shooter. It has elements of both MMOs and FPS, with class types spanning gaming history and future classes to come.
A Groundbreaking Innovation
Some years ago, battle royale took the world by storm. We saw the genre explode in popularity. Millions of gamers flocked to the new kind of game, which is now seen as one of the most exciting and challenging. Soon, game publishers took notice and began to essentially print out battle royales as fast as humanly possible.
What we have today is a market that is, for all intents and purposes, super-saturated in BRs. So much so, there is to some extent very little practical difference between many battle royales nowadays. Most popular BRs tend to remain limited to a standardized shooter model, with minimal deviation between games. There is of course still innovation and plenty of fun to be had. Enjoyment does not require divergence. But on a creative level, BRs have in some ways become like other genres: kept within an industry box.
Chaoscraft unlocks this box in a way it cannot be truthfully said any other studio ever has. We plan to release a Battle Royale mode that features not only the classic trinity of melee, magic, and tech, with dozens of classes and hundreds of abilities and builds, but a form of map randomization that sees the advent of a new kind of Battle Royale altogether. To take this further, each season offers unique Rank 1, Top 10, and other rewards deeply incentivizing high-level competitive play, enhanced by our Scorched Earth anti-cheat designed to fuck cheaters into eternity.
This is, perhaps, the most important point of all this. At the end of the day, no matter how radically we revamp Battle Royale, no matter how rich the class selection is or how colorful and magical the dimensions, cheaters will try to cheat and ruin the game for everyone else. Our position on anti-cheat is one of the strongest principles of our studio, regardless of how small we are currently. We do not fuck around with cheaters. We know creators will react to this page one day and, as we’ve stated, we want to make this crystal clear:
Most game publishers will not use Real ID based anti-cheat to identify and life ban cheaters. Nor will they invest in the levels of anti-cheat software required to fully eradicate future cheaters from games. Cheaters are willing to spend thousands of dollars on software. Some will spend even more to gain prestigious rank.
A game is not a legit game if it has even a single cheater that could be detected and life-banned if a game company were to invest greater resources in security. There’s no sense in even calling it a game at that point. It’s like calling a chess game a chess game when one player is arbitrarily moving pieces around on the board without any regard for the rules. Is it really chess? No.
This is as significant and relevant to Battle Royale and versus as any other feature. Anti-cheat is the heart of any legitimate title. You must, as a developer, be willing to bring the goddamn hammer down as hard as you possibly can on these scumbags with whatever tools you have at your disposal, no matter how uncomfortable it may make people. If you just ban their accounts or devices, they’ll make or buy new ones. You have to ban them for life.
This is real Battle Royale.
This is real ranked versus.
We’re ready to take BRs to the next level. Class customization, map randomization, and hardline anti-cheat are only some of the features we have planned. If you love BRs, and want a new challenge that thinks outside the box and spares no cheaters, this is an indie title in the works to make it a reality.
We envision a rank system similar to below:
Rank 1
Elite (Top 10)
Grandmaster (2400+)
Master (2000+)
Adversary (1800+)
Contender (1600+)