[Update]: Shadow Arena has now been released into Steam Early Access.

They may be a bit late for the whole Battle Royale craze, but Black Desert Online studio Pearl Abyss will soon be releasing their very own take on the genre into Early Access. The titular Shadow Arena will have 40 players scramble across the entire map in search of monsters and loot, all the while keeping an eye out for any opposing players that might prove to be a threat... or a tasty morsel!

While the basics are pretty much the same, the one aspect where Shadow Arena greatly differs from the rest of the genre is the combat, mostly because it's heavily inspired by the one found in Black Desert Online. So in Shadow Arena each of the ten heroes will have unique abilities and playstyles, and learning how to effectively manage and counter each of them is going to be quite important and also quite tricky.

But rather than just babble on, allow me to share with you one of the character trailers from the recent beta. It should give you a pretty good idea of what the various playstyles might be capable of, as well as what the combat in Shadow Arena is really all about. Have a little peek:

While Shadow Arena will be launching as an Early Access game, the core gameplay is pretty much all there and accounted for. As for the future updates, you can expect those to bring in new maps, game modes, characters, as well as an official ranked season around the time of the full release. Speaking of which, there is currently no exact information on when Shadow Arena will be leaving Early Access, but the developers are planning to have it set sail at some point in 2020.

You can learn more about Shadow Arena, as well as give it a try for free once it goes live, over at Steam.