20 players fighting on a relatively small map for 10 minutes is a pretty underwhelming "Battle Royale".

Overall, Rumbleverse is kind of fun even though some of the mechanics aren't very easy to figure out. I found myself using a move on another player, then sort of just bouncing off of them when they weren't blocking and I'd wonder if I did something wrong, if it was a latency thing, or if the game was just busted.

It just doesn't really do a good job of communicating when you can use abilities, what moves have priority, how you recover, why you're stunned, etc. etc. A lot of those could be solved by just having a better UI and competent tutorial.
The current tutorial is just "Hey, explore the entire map and we've hidden some TVs around that loosely explain mechanics". Bad

Visually, the game leaves a lot to be desired. The styling is a bit rough and the UI is horrible.

This is also yet another free-to-play game from devs that seemingly have never played another F2P game before. It seems silly but Fortnite is one of the most profitable games for a reason. Their skins in Fortnite are all pretty fairly priced... especially in contrast to Rumbleverse which is charging $22 for pretty bad quality skins and $7 for a plain hair style. Wild

I'll give the game one thing - getting to the final circle and winning the hectic battle is pretty fun. Even if this "Battle Royale" only fills the lobby with 20 people.

+ Kind of fun
+ Satisfying to win a match

- Terrible UI
- Unclear combat mechanics and move priority
- Bad stun-locking issue
- Extremely overpriced skins
- Bad tutorial

Rumbleverse is an interesting idea for a battle royale, as it asks the bold question "What if Fortnite but wrestling?"... okay but seriously tho, I know Fortnite is popular but you don't need to recreate their UI/Interface 1 to 1. To its credit however, I do think the core gameplay is decent and the goofy wrestling theme is initially charming, but there is FAR too much going on here and the whole thing quickly unravels once you realize how convoluted, unbalanced, and overly complex it actually is. What should be a relatively simple brawler just turns into a straight up fighting game with seemingly endless lists of tactics, secret combos, and attack priorities. This might not be that bad, if the game wasn't one of the most inconsistent multiplayer game I've played. And after about 15 hours with it, I still cannot tell you with any certainty how a lot of the minutia actually works. Sometimes your unblockable attack will lock-on teleport you across the street to grab someone, and sometimes you can literally go through them but it doesn't give it to you. Sometimes you can punish another player for missing their unblockable and sometimes they can immediately dodge out of it. Most of the time getting knocked on the ground makes you invincible for a few seconds, yet other times you can get hit right away and will be combo'd into oblivion. Are these inconsistencies genuine mechanics I need to learn? Is the game just not very well designed? Or is it simply shitty netcode? Fuck if I know. There's just too much shit going on, and I think the game would benefit from being a lot more simplified.

And on top of that the game has by far the dumbest perk system I've ever seen where you randomly get perks once you deal enough damage. But there's no way to determine which perks you get, and they range from medicore things like "Throwables deal 20% more damage" to completely broken shit like "LUL LITERALLY FUCKING HEAL BY DEALING DAMAGE" or "HEAL BY STANDING STILL". That fact that you can get perks that broken AT RANDOM is insane, and its no surprise that 95% of games are won by people with one of the free healing perks.

IDK. I initially had some fun with it, but then it really started to piss me off once I realized how much of a mess it was. And as a free-to-play multiplayer game, having so much convoluted shit going on feels like the opposite thing you want, especially since the game does a horrific job at teaching you anything. It's definitely salvageable, but at its current state, I'd recommend staying away. At least until they just get rid of that dogshit perk system lmao.

Rumbleverse might've been too much like a fighting game for its own good. Learning mastery of mechanics and situations is great. I love it. I am a fighting gamer. I'm not sure how many people are ready for that level of study to support a live service battle royale game, though. There was a whole system of priority levels. No option beat everything. Stronger options were more punishable (besides maybe Super, but that's time limited by meter). Much like a fighting game, there's always going to be tactics that beat newer players very easily until they learn what mistakes they're making. Being able to get into a match and not die near instantly because someone snuck up on me (unless I'm on a really tall building) is a great change to the battle royale format that melee combat offers. Getting lucky wins is far less common than it feels in a standard battle royale. I didn't vibe with the art style at first and it didn't really grow on me that much, but I can't deny that it suits the Looney Tunes style action the game offers.

I gave Rumbleverse a serious try because the concept seemed like something I could get into. I just loved the idea of a wrestling-inspired battle royal game, where you use flashy wrestling moves instead of guns.

And the gameplay is legitimately fun! It scratches that itch for visceral “back stage” brawling you’d occasionally see on wrestling — where two or more wrestlers would stumble through hallways, locker rooms, grocery stores, sometimes even city streets and pummel each other with anything and everything in reach.

Not since the days of WWF No Mercy, or Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain have I felt like this. There’s inherent glee in catching an opponent off guard and super kicking them off a construction crane, or having them whiff an attack and making them pay with a choke slam off the top of a skyscraper, or scaling a tower and landing a massive elbow drop onto a group of unsuspecting grapplers. I even felt some comical joy in getting my comeuppance — a well placed chair shot breaking my shield, or accidentally spearing someone into the ocean, which effectively KO’s both grapplers instantly. There’s some real fun to be had here, on both sides of the can of whoop ass.

Unfortunately there was just too many detractors to keep me playing. For one, the game looks deeply unappealing. I almost wrote it off completely because you can just tell they were trying to cash in on the Fortnite look and tone in a way that feels cynical and shallow.

But, unlike Fortnite, which has interesting skins, a malleable art style, and a tone that can play up both goofy antics and get serious when it needs to, Rumbleverse cranks the goofball meter to the breaking point. It seems like virtually every cosmetic item is designed to be some gag, or parody, or something ridiculous. Sure, you can design your grappler with some traditional or interesting looking tights, boots, elbow pads, etc. but for every cool piece there’s double, triple that in cartoonish or bizarre choices. Want to be a pig wearing a sombrero with the word “nacho” on your spandex? Or level up 100 levels in the battle pass to be a costumed chicken mascot? Want to pay a premium in the cash shop to wear a horse or pigeon head? Do you desire to look like a wrestling version of Ichabod Crane? Rumbleverse has you covered.

I don’t want or need an incredibly serious experience to have fun. I love when games can do both and earnestly balance corny and cool. Wrestling itself can be both incredibly cool and incredibly silly. Rumbleverse does not do that. It feels like it’s only interested in being cartoony — right down to your character folding like an accordion when they land from a high height and having to blow into their thumb to inflate themselves like a looney tunes character. It’s deeply off putting unless you want to feel like you’re wrestling in toon town.

I had to fight the game itself to get a character I’m happy with, while it constantly spat out ugly or ridiculous gimmick costumes, only occasionally throwing me a bone with a nice pair of boots or something. I bought the battle pass, and stopped playing about a third of the way through because I honestly did not want to grind matches to unlock a “battle chef” costume, or an old-timey mustached circus outfit. Oddly, some levels you gain unlock one “variant” piece of that same outfit. Like, the hairnet comes with the battle chef costume but you also get the hairnet again with a different hair color at a different level. Why?

The game’s music and dialogue also wore thin. There’s like two music tracks in the entire game, the same looping music that plays when you start the game, and the same one that plays when you launch into the city. Over and over again. Then there’s the announcer. At first he’s great, sounding like a joke-y version of the announcers at any sporting or wrestling event. He’s smarmy and full of gags. Unfortunately, he runs out of unique lines pretty fast and will just repeat the same stuff constantly. It’s also not great to hear him make some joke at your expense when you get KO’d. It’s bad enough losing when you weren’t expecting to, no one needs someone saying “they should hang that elimination in a museum” in your ear to rub it in. After several rounds of this, I turned the music and dialogue off, leaving just the ambient noise and sound effects to listen to.

It’s a shame because I did generally enjoy the grappling and combat. I think the game could stand to have some more variety in its moves and basic attacks, but I had fun with it from a gameplay perspective and I think what’s there is a solid start. I just wish the rest of the game wasn’t so deeply unappealing.

Here’s hoping they course correct the style and tone in the future, because I’d love to revisit when there’s more to offer. Despite it all I’d like this game to succeed.

I'm not a huge battle royale guy, but after seeing a few videos of this game I was hooked and wanted to try it for myself. Surprisingly, Rumbleverse lived up to my expectations after playing it for a while!

+ Mixes fighting games and the battle royale genre really well
+ Combat feel much more visceral than gunfights do in traditional BRs
+ Getting KOs always feels cathartic
+ Really cool combos that you can pull off
+ Perk system encourages you to fight other players as much as possible
+ Variety of special moves which allow for several playstyles

- Game has no tutorial (that I could find at least)
- Netcode gets on your nerves sometimes (moves miss when they should hit, others hit when they should miss)
- The game kind of looks like ass
- Battle pass system is to be expected in a BR game, but I still don't like it

Overall, if you have experience with fighting games or want a great entry into the genre, I'd recommend playing Rumbleverse for a few rounds.

Being into fighting games, I liked the idea of a battle royale similar to one crossed with that one hulk game I played at a walmart kiosk when I was a kid. It doesn't have an appealing aesthetic, it's jank as hell, it has some of the usual annoyances you'd find in a battle royale game, and I still find myself playing it for an hour or two when I have the time because despite all that there's hardly any other battle royale game that plays similar to it. The devs are good with balancing the game and communicating with the community, and I hope it goes from being a fun game that's rough around to edges to something solid. There's nothing better than uppercutting someone out the air, dodge canceling, grabbing them, diving into their body, and doing it again until their invincibility kicks in and they promptly run off after getting styled on.

EDIT: Game getting shutdown by the end of next month lol.