Preview | Arkanoid: Eternal Battle - Forever A Classic

Bringing out a competitive multiplayer version of old arcade games is a tried and tested way to revamp and remarket a game's initial success and popularity, from Pac-Man 99, to… well, Tetris 99. Arkanoid: Eternal Battle, as shown at Gamescom 2022, is the latest venture into this realm. A contemporary, neon-outlined, crossplay version of the classic 1986 game, the game leans heavily on the appeal of playing with other people to try to cultivate an audience. Developed by Pastagames, it is a joint venture between the game's publishers, Microids and Taito.

As ever with Arkanoid the goal in Eternal Battle is still bouncing those balls, breaking those bricks, and beating back the space being DOH. In this new release that will now be possible across multiple modes, via a host of modern reimaginings of the franchise's visual style, sound design, pacing, and objectives.

BACK IN MY DAY!

Among these new interpretations of the game is a retro mode that was apparently a redevelopment of the original Arkanoid from the ground up. This mode was apparently made as a way for Pastagames to become acquainted with the details of the original game and demonstrate to Taito the familiarity that they had with the title.

While it might be nice to load up a rebuild of classic Arkanoid, the more interesting ambitions of this release come in Pastagames' answer to the question, "How do you turn Arkanoid into a battle royale?"

Their solution? Round up 25 different Arkanoid screens, each with their own player, moving each one above or below in the rankings of the other players based on score. You can see the play progress of those next to you in the ranking, and even target them with items that you collect in play. It's similar to Mario Kart in that way, if your Kart was a score in a classic arcade game and a blue shell was a blast that knocked ten percent from your rival's score. As you move up and down the ranks - something that can happen pretty quickly - you get served different forms of Xavier Thiry's adaptive soundtrack, responding to your ascension to the top of the leaderboard, or descent into the peril of elimination. The royale's eliminations happen by timer, taking out the lowest scorer, and once down to the final four players all join on one screen to battle Arkanoid's mythological antagonist DOH. At that point the items are taken away and holding onto your score becomes harder, as DOH attempts to whittle down your scores against another elimination timer until only the highest scorer remains.

Let chaos reign.

Crossplay across major platforms for the battle royale mode is the intention that the developers have been slowly ramping up server tests for. There's also the intent to have ranked leaderboards, based on positioning and scoring in battle royale mode, which if you rank up in could unlock in-game prizes such as skins and backgrounds.

I played some of the game with one of the marketing team at Gamescom, who provided the details for this piece, and had fun with the way a battle royale combines the already frantic gameplay with the threat of elimination. I was kindly encouraged to play through the battle royale three different times (and encouraged to stop being eliminated too) so that I could see all the content in its final encounter. 

You might joke but I don’t see Breakout getting a new game, so who is the real winner here?!

From the conversation I had about the viability of bringing back such an old franchise it felt like there was a mixed level of confidence in the game breaking out, but no shortage of ambition. Judging from what I played I could definitely imagine the combination of the classic formula with the tension of new multiplayer elements affording it some popularity. That potential seems like it would hinge not just on the fluidity and technical success of the final product, but what level of availability and pricing the game receives too.

Arkanoid: Eternal Battle is planned to launch in October of 2022 on PC, Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, XboxOne and Xbox Series X|S