Shadow Arena battle royale goes standalone, closed beta coming soon

The final game that Pearl Abyss is revealing in depth during G-Star 2019 is Shadow Arena battle royale. If it sounds familiar, that's because this was a game mode for Black Desert Online that ended up canceled just a few months after entering the testing phase.

This was allegedly due to rampant cheating and because the devs wanted to focus on Black Desert. The return of Shadow Arena as a standalone mode was announced in October, to the surprise of many players who thought the mode was dead in the water.

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It's not entirely clear what Pearl Abyss is expecting with Shadow Arena. It could appeal to a fraction of the Black Desert player base as a nice distraction, but being its own game sounds like too much trouble.

Being released as it was originally intended, a Black Desert game mode, could have performed better, but only Pearl Abyss has the accurate figures to make a proper judgment. Who knows, maybe the demand for this battle royale was higher than expected.

Shadow Arena battle royale pits 50 players against each other in solo or team modes. However, you don't pick your character right at the start; instead, you begin the matches as a spirit and have to find an adventurer to possess and control. This adds a nice layer of randomness to the game, as you have to adapt to the distinct fighting styles that are inherent to each of the game's classes.

The Shadow Arena closed beta test is starting on November 21, running until November 24. It's a short beta, but should give you a good idea of the game. The full launch is planned for the first half of 2020, exclusively on PC.