RPG devs cancel battle royale after 3 years, pivot Scramble Knights to MMO-lite

Funktronic Labs has renamed Scramble Knights Royale to Scramble Knights Online after three years developing it as a battle royale. The studio acknowledged that "A live-service Battle Royale was not going to work for us." In a YouTube video with a thumbnail reading "the haters were right," co-founder Eddie Lee says the team had been "cooking this Zelda-inspired battle royale game" despite ongoing skepticism.

Funktronic ran the numbers and determined it would need "2-3,000 at the minimum, concurrent users" to maintain player liquidity, concluding that "the numbers we need to succeed is going to be damn near impossible." Rather than cancel the project, the team pivoted to what Lee describes as a "Monster Hunter-inspired MMO-lite experience," a shift he called magical.

funktronic labs, scramble knights, battle royale, mmo-lite, monster hunter, eddie lee, live-service, concurrent users, player liquidity, zelda-inspired