CRSED: FOAD Review (PS5) – Io games online

 CRSED: FOAD Review (PS5)

The battle royale has seen quite the rise in 2020. Whether it be the continuing dominance of Fortnite over the known universe, PUBG finally becoming a multiplatform, cross-play success, Fall Guys turning the genre on its head, Spellbreak bringing fantasy elements and erm, not much else and Call of Duty throwing all of its chips into Warzone, you’d be forgiven for thinking there probably wasn’t room for another player at this particular table. Yet in January came Cuisine Royale, a Royale that mixed up the formula by adding fantasy elements, zombies and ridiculous costumes.

Whilst it didn’t take off the same way as say, Fortnite or PUBG, it had a following that supported the little Royale that could, and now it’s back with a new name and erm, well, not much else. Rest in peace Cuisine Royale, long live CRSED: FOAD (Cuisine Royale Second

CRSED lands you on a typical royale island, including large open spaces and abandoned buildings full of joyful loot the snaffle up and use in your defence against literally everyone else. As with any royale it’s a slow build if you start in quiet places, but particularly in CRSED as I’ve never played a match with anymore than 35-odd players, making the map enormous, and very rarely will you run into players in the first five or six minutes of the game. The map features vehicles, so if you need to move to avoid the map decreasing in size there’s some easy enough getaways.

The ‘big map, less players’ aspect of CRSED allows for somewhat more tactical play, as instead of a bonkers free-for-all landing in hot spots that can knock you out in seconds (hey there, Lazy Lake), you’ll rarely feel panicked immediately, so moving into the safe zones forces you to slow your pace, as you have no real idea where anybody is. Crawling through the grass allows for methodical movement and stealth becomes a more obvious way of moving through locations. It’s terribly quiet. Until it isn’t.

What CRSED brings to the genre over the other players at this particular table is the mythical mechanics and supernatural powers. From the likes of zombie summoning (which, rather hilariously, has the undead following you around for a period having your back), invisibility, super speed or turning you into a beastly monster, the range on offer is certainly a fun twist on the usual fodder, and makes PUBG look decidedly dull in comparison. 

The best way to play CRSED is just to let it happen. While the battle royale professional in you may want to keep it focused on your weaponry and allow you to move at your own pace, the reality is you’ll get left behind if you don’t steer into the skid of the supernatural elements. Whilst they’re temporary, a majority of them are way OP, so avoiding attacks with summoning creatures is your best bet if you have nothing to defend yourself.

What mystical summoning you can conjure is dependent on your character choice, and there’s quite the collection of Royale hunters to choose from, including a thunder god, a cowboy/girl, a shaman and purchasable packs such as a Metal Zombie (that looks awesome), a Biker Queen who looks like she’s been ripped directly from PUBG, a vicar with an AK and my personal favourite the Fire Dragon that wields Japanese swords and kicks all kinds of ass.

CRSED itself is a free download, and the aforementioned character packs range from £8 to £16, depending on what’s included. The more expensive packs include a good number of crowns you can use to buy in-game cosmetics, with crown packs starting at £7.99. Amazingly a little more expensive than the smallest V-Bucks pack, but there’s a fair amount you can put them towards. 

I don’t begrudge a free game offering in-game purchases, despite others doing so. The CRSED collection of *things* is rather overwhelming at first, and the game certainly does a poor job of explaining anything to you. The shop is best avoided until you’ve had a few games under your belt and you know the lay of the land and what kind of characters you’re after, it all makes sense. Eventually. Kind of. It’s not really supposed to. 

And that’s really the beauty of what CRSED is. It’s a Royale for those who crave that PUBG experience but with a bit more madness about it. It’s difficult to compare it to other Royales because it’s PUBG with smooth jazz and summonings. There doesn’t appear to be a lick of Fortnite or CoD here which some may find some relief in.

Features:

Massive and dense PvP battles: dozens of players begin their trip in one of the four picturesque and detailed locations, fighting their way to the centre of the battlefield. All the while, the battlefield itself shrinks constantly, surrounded by the deadly Dark Zone.

Seven different champions to select - each one with a unique superpower.

A constantly growing collection of realistically modelled weapons and armor, including anti-materiel guns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, rocket launchers, flamethrowers and mortars. There are few compromises in the game regarding physics or ballistics rules. Different vehicles, military amphibians and speed boats will help to cover distances.

Use mystical powers! Draw seals with your blood or conduct ancient rituals, throw hex bags at enemies and use your own special power. You can flood the whole map or cause the sun to eclipse, set up traps, summon zombies or teleport yourself or others the hell out of here. But first, one needs to collect sinner souls for killing enemies - to be able to pay for most of that luxury.

Stand out from the crowd with different costumes, masks, talismans, hats, gestures, graffiti and even underwear! Unlock new spirit-guardians to get additional tactical abilities in the battles.

Regular special events with new rules and setups of battles and a system of daily tasks and secret missions rewarding players with unique items and powers.

Fair play TPV: you can play in first or third person view. In order to mitigate any advantage of the latter, every player has a familiar with a camera that can uncover the position of a player who is peeking around a corner. So if you see a butterfly or a drone - you should know that you are being watched.

New content is added frequently!

Gameplay

CRSED: F.O.A.D. puts several dozens of players on a map surrounded by a shrinking ring of death and makes them fight each other until there is only one standing. Players use weapons, items and vehicles they find right on the map.[2] Unlike other battle royale games, there is no parachuting/insertion phase[3] and players are spawned randomly all across the map right after matchmaking is finished. It's possible to play in both first-person and third-person modes, but in the latter case players are accompanied by flying camera drones to uncover positions of those who peek around corners.

It's possible to play solo or in a team of two or four players.[2]

While all the weapons in the game are based on real ones (half of them came right from Enlisted[4]), players can also use supernatural items (i.e. lunar gravity boots or health boosting cigar[5]) and supernatural skills [6](i.e. zombie summoning, temporary invisibility or turning into a beast[7]).

Most of the skills (called "signs" and "rituals") are unlocked by grinding through the game, but some are unique to one of the seven available characters (called "Champions"[8]).

The tournament characters are fighting at is called F.O.A.D. (or Fulfillment of All Desires), according to the developers,[8] but there is almost no information on what it's really about inside the game itself.

There are 4 maps available: summer and winter versions of Normandy, Island of Siberia [9]and Mexico.

Development

At first the game became available in 2018 as an April Fools' joke[10] based on the engine of Enlisted,[11] another online shooter under development by the studio at the time. In June 2018 publisher decided [12] to release Cuisine Royale as a standalone title and started the open beta test soon after that. The game was officially launched[13] on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in December 2019. In January 2020 Cuisine Royale became the third most downloaded[14] free-to-play title in PlayStation store.

Originally the game was promoted as a parody title mocking PUBG and other free-to-play shooters and was mostly known as a shooter where you can fight using kitchenware[15] [16]as both weapons and armor, but in 2019 the developers gradually dropped most of the kitchen-related items and jokes (i.e. replaced comical shopping plastic bags with tactical bags[8]). In December 2020, the name was changed to CRSED: F.O.A.D.. All kitchenware screenshots are now no longer available at the official website.[8]

CRSED: F.O.A.D. is available on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility with native versions coming soon.[17] PC version boasts DLSS support that gives 40% performance boost in CRSED: F.O.A.D. according to Nvidia.[18]

Reception

The PS4 version of Cuisine Royale received an aggregate score of 73/100 on Metacritic.[19]

According to The Sixth Axis, the game "doesn’t do anything too different from the battle royales that came before it, but it really leans into its own brand of humour",[6] while The Xbox Hub called it "a solid, enjoyable game with a wacky persona".[4] PC Gamer stated that "Part of the appeal, at least for me, is the lack of waiting around for the game to get started". Game Spew mentioned that, "while the push to purchase/unlock items can be irritating, there’s still a lot of fun to be had here".[2]