Cuisine Royale started as a joke, but now it’s an interesting and free-to-play battle royale shooter. Forks, spoons – your guns. Five packs are your backpacks. Refrigerators are loot boxes. And it’s all free in early access.
Simulation is no longer just a genre to laugh at and forget: now there is battle royale. Many developers have already joked about adding a battle royale mode to their games, especially on April 1st, but some just go ahead and do it. Cuisine Royale began as an April Fool’s joke mode for MMO shooter Enlisted and is now a standalone game on Steam (which will remain free during Early Access). And she’s quite attractive.
I definitely like the fact that you don’t have to wait long for the game to start. Up to 30 players can participate in one battle at the same time, and all the battles that I participated in started in a couple of seconds. There are no lobbies for someone to hide there and kill you, no long plane flights, no skydiving: you just run on the ground and shoot. There’s definitely less tactical planning than other BR games, but it’s a lot faster if you’re itching to get started.
This is a normal BR game: the player runs around the buildings looking for weapons, grenades and first aid kits, and gathers other players together. The beauty is that all weapons are kitchen utensils. Pots, pans, ladles, cutlery, waffle irons, colanders – you tie them to you as soon as you find them (otherwise you could only put them in your underpants) until you are covered with kitchen utensils.
Armor also has its own levels of protection: once, I changed the first level pot that I used as a helmet for a more durable level three pan. I can only imagine how great it would be to cook pasta in it.
You certainly enjoy putting on pots and pans, but all those kitchen fixtures that hang on you start to rattle as you run. You can both laugh and figure out the enemy, as I did twice. In truth, the sounds in Cuisine Royale are more than okay. Once, when I was hiding in the house, I heard footsteps above me – someone was walking on the roof. I looked up and saw dust falling from the beams as another player ran. The doors creak loudly as they open and close, which alerted me once to an approaching player. No doubt all these noises can work against you as well, which explains why I crossed paths with a player during a battle that wasn’t wearing any armor.
Movement around the world is also very well thought out: jumping on walls and fences looks natural. Although I can’t say the same about ballistics: I was able to shoot well from the hip, but somehow with an iron sight I did not hit accurately. And once, I spent almost the entire magazine on a fleeing enemy, aiming at him, and I never hit him. Maybe the sight was shot down, or maybe the enemy had a very strong frying pan on his back, from which bullets bounced off, although I did not hear any bouncing sounds.
The trophies here are, shall we say, rather ridiculous. Probably due to the fact that all the collected cargo has to be carried in grocery bags made of paper and plastic instead of backpacks, killing one of the players can lead to a massive explosion of shops, pizza, ham, sausages, pastries and a hodgepodge of random armor from kitchen utensils on the floor.
It is worth cautioning that you will have to use Gaijin.net. You will see a warning on the Steam Store page that this game requires Gaijin.net, and it will be installed automatically to keep Cuisine Royale and other games that require it (such as War Thunder) updated periodically. Removing Gaijin Agent can be quite difficult. But, as they say, forewarned is forearmed.
Cuisine Royale is available for free in Early Access. You can also buy some skins if you want to support the developers.
First impression
Let’s start off by saying that I know what you’re thinking. Yes, you read the title correctly. Yes, this game actually exists. Yes, she is very interesting. And yes, once again, I’m not kidding. It’s free to play until July 2nd, and if you download it before the deadline, then you’ll keep the game and you won’t have to pay.
It’s a World War II era battle royale where you don’t jump out of a plane, you don’t fly like a superhero above the ground, and you don’t have to suddenly fight. Instead, you just walk in and start shooting. And while you’re shooting, other people will start showing up too, so your adventure can be VERY short. Here it is VERY SHORT.
I do not think that while you are shooting at the city, someone’s appearance can greatly change the outcome of the battle. It is so insignificant. I’ve played about 5 times and we’ve won 2 battles (well, not me, because I’m dying fast because of my…ummm… “pick and grab ’em” tactics).
So far I seem to have a good impression of this game, and I can definitely say that it was fun to play. I confess that I played with three friends as a group, which could add a little fun to the game.
Gameplay
As in any other battle royale, you start with nothing, and you have to take all the armature from the bodies of dead characters. It is quite difficult to find weapons in the game, but there are enough of them, so you can not despair. As soon as you or your team wins the battle, you get even more loot.
One of the many unique features of this game are the armor slots. There are head, left shoulder, right shoulder, left leg, right leg, chest, back, butt and two special slots. For each of them there are designations Mk 1, Mk 2, Mk 3 for various degrees of rarity and level of armor protection. There are also a few useful accessories that behave like “advantages” that change some aspects. For example, there are goggles that increase your hit accuracy and decrease your reload speed, or a cigar that increases your health just as well as first-aid kits. No doubt you can find something useful.
Another unique feature…just how funny how all this gear looks. The character running here is pretty clumsy, but to be honest, this is the only game that clumsiness suits. This is a shooter with very interesting mechanics that is a lot of fun.
Would I recommend?
At the time of this writing, I would 100% recommend this game without the slightest doubt. It’s shareware, so definitely take a look at it. And finally, download it for rainy days. The game is very interesting and I’m looking forward to the evening to play it again.
