HomeFeaturesRocket Bot Royale
Rocket Bot Royale is a free-to-play battle royale that captures the jubilant chaos of Worms5-minute matches filled with sublime skill-based plays
5-minute matches filled with sublime skill-based plays
Damn. I really have my work cut out for me with this one. I’ve given myself the span of a fairly short post to try and convince you, dear reader, to giveRocket Bot Royalea shot. It looks like a browser-based game, and it is. It looks like it’s probably not worth anyone’s time except schoolkids playing on computers in the IT department during their lunch breaks. But goodness me, is there more going on here than meets the eye.
As I’ve made abundantly clear ever since I joined RPS, battle royales are my jam. I’ll happily bulk out my Steam library with reams of half-baked ideas and clunky combat systems in the hopes of finding the next big time-sink for me and my squadmates to get lost in over the next several months. I fully expected Rocket Bot Royale to be left at the bottom of my most played games on Steam list after a few weeks, but after a few hours of play, I’m starting to think eventually it might arrive at the top. It’s Worms, but with tanks. It’s free to play. And I absolutely cannot stop playing it.
Rocket Bot Royale - Official Launch TrailerWatch on YouTube
Rocket Bot Royale - Official Launch Trailer
I’m writing this post only a day after discovering this wonderful game, and I already feel like I’ve pulled off some spectacular moves thanks to shrewd use of my weaponry to dodge attacks and launch my own. Yes, it may not look it, but Rocket Bot Royale is a game that heavily rewards skill and clever plays. There are extra weapon pickups dotted about every map, and more will arrive via Worms-esque air-dropped crates over the course of a game. There’s a cluster missile, a nuke that provides a much larger explosion, a homing missile, a shield that reflects all weapons for a short time, and quite a few more that I haven’t yet come across. String together these different weapons appropriately, and you can pull off some magnificent plays that will make you feel nothing short of godly.
Here’s one such play I made earlier that scored me a triple-kill. It took a whole team of first responders to unclench my arsecheeks after this one.
There’s a whole little meta-progression system going on as well, where you can use the money you collect in each game to kit yourself out with extra weapons and perks like bonus health and damage for your next match. But I prefer to completely ignore all that. It’s so much more satisfying to be the last one standing when you’ve had to beat several far more heavily armed and armoured tanks than yourself to get there. And with the ability to collect new weapons over the course of a match, nothing ever feels unfair.
Back in December I wrote a piece onthe upcoming battle royale Rumbleverse, in which I talked about how the game will frequently make me chortle even at my own death. For someone who gets quite competitive with these sorts of games, that’s quite a rare thing - but unlikely though it may be, Rocket Bot Royale is exactly the same. It may look like a game that’s been thrown together without much thought, but you could - equally mistakenly - say the same aboutVampire Survivors. With ideas as good and as simple as these, they don’t need much embellishing before they become some of the most fun you can have with a computer and a spare half-hour.
I’ve been playing Rocket Bot Royale onSteam, but it’s also available to playin-browser. Try it out. Do some jumps, explode some tanks, and prepare for my inevitable Game Of The Year recommendation in eight months' time.
