What does the term "Battle Royale" actually mean ?

Alrik Fassbauer

Alrik Fassbauer

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Hello everyone,

since I've met the term "Battle Royale", I'm puzzled over what it might actually mean.

Variations I've come up are :

- a king's battle
- battle between kings
- a kingly battle
- a kingly meal in form of a battle (in the sense of Gelee Royale)

Some of these attempts to translate this term are of coursew not quite serious - but used to show how I fail to understand what the term means.

So far I can only understand this : A "Battle Royale" is meant to be "the king of all battles", or, in other words, "the mother of all battles".

I still fail to see any kind of genre connected with this term.

The only game I know as being described with this game is in my eyes simply a sooter, nothing else.
People might perhaps call it an "immersive sim", but The SIMs are to me an immersive sim, too.

Maybe I'm too old now, and maybe I'm too conservative,

but I often wonder how and why younger people twist and change words into new forms of gaming terms.

Alrik
 
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Read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Royale_(film)

Then watch the movie. Where, dunno, seems Netflix doesn't stream it outside of USA and I don't trust iTunes streaming quality. Seems you can watch it with ads on pcflix and Vudu:
https://reelgood.com/movie/battle-royale-2000
Those are all legit streams ofc. but availability depends on your country.

Note that a decade back a friend of mine who became a school teacher was obsessed with this movie (thanks to his real life students) he was calling me daily to persuade me into watching it. And he was right, I loved it. More than later takes in the genre.

EDIT:
No, it's not immersive sim idiocy that means nothing. The movie (in fact a novel) name made the genre.
 
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I won't watch it. Why should I ?

I'm not a member of the "seeing is beliewving" group. I rtather prefer it when people actually take the time to describe something.

Mere linking towards an internet resource just a sign of laziness in my eyes. The "linking generation" will soon unlearn to actually write.

However, I still don't see what Royality and Kingship has something to do with it.

Or is this just another example of a film title using words *normal* people just won't understand, as with Elfenlied ?
 
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Well, there was a Royal Rumble in the World Wrestling Federation as far back as 1988. (They were pretty terrible, for the record, except when Ric Flair won… but that's another forum.) All participants pull a number out of a hat and come into the ring in that order. #1 and #2 start then, 1 minute (?) later, #3 runs in and joins them, and a minute after that #4, and so on. A wrestler has to be pushed out over the top rope to be disqualified. Last wrestler in the ring wins.

The term is WAY older than that, though.

At a total guess, I presume it references <ahem> troubled royal successions where various claimants to the throne would dispose of each other until one was chosen. If you want the proper history, you can likely look it up somewhere with enough Googling.
 
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Alrik Fassbauer said:
I won't watch it. Why should I ?

I'm not a member of the "seeing is beliewving" group. I rtather prefer it when people actually take the time to describe something.

Mere linking towards an internet resource just a sign of laziness in my eyes. The "linking generation" will soon unlearn to actually write.

However, I still don't see what Royality and Kingship has something to do with it.

Or is this just another example of a film title using words *normal* people just won't understand, as with Elfenlied ?
Click to expand...
It does not necessarily need to mean royal in its literal sense.

It can be similar to saying the battle of the century or the best battle ever. Or to say its an unmissable battle.

It's not to be taken literally.



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To me, a battle royale always meant numerous opponents, following not many generally established rules in a huge, melee combat format. These could break out in almost any imagined setting, from the caveman days right up to the present day work place, or entertainment district.
 
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There is only one rule and it's you die if you don't win and the winner is a sole survivor.
Melee or not melee doesn't matter.

Note that Battle Royale movie (and the book) are not the first genre entries - the sole winner "tournament" where contestants cannot exit unless last alive happen in The Running Man (1987) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Dunno if there were older ones, sorry, but it's just that Battle Royale got widely accepted as the name of a genre.

Is there a singleplayer battle royale game where you can chatty with NPCs yet they want to kill you and you need to kill them all in order to win? On PC? There is. Sleeping Dogs is the game and such tournament on a remote island is a sidequest.
 
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I was attempting to answer Alrik's original query, not trying to put the term in gamer/movie context, as I'm sure I first encountered this slang in text form, most likely in the seventies. Two other observations that have occurred to me since my earlier post would be mayhem and spectators, they both tend to be criteria that exists for this particular battle type.
 
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joxer said:
There is only one rule and it's you die if you don't win and the winner is a sole survivor.
Melee or not melee doesn't matter.

Note that Battle Royale movie (and the book) are not the first genre entries - the sole winner "tournament" where contestants cannot exit unless last alive happen in The Running Man (1987) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Dunno if there were older ones, sorry, but it's just that Battle Royale got widely accepted as the name of a genre.

Is there a singleplayer battle royale game where you can chatty with NPCs yet they want to kill you and you need to kill them all in order to win? On PC? There is. Sleeping Dogs is the game and such tournament on a remote island is a sidequest.
Click to expand...
That's not strictly true.

That's the Last Man Standing.

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Carnifex said:
I'm sure I first encountered this slang in text form, most likely in the seventies.
Click to expand...
It's possible. I wrote what I know, doesn't mean it's correct info.
Pladio said:
That's not strictly true.

That's the Last Man Standing.

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Click to expand...
You can't put Last man Standing as genre definition. Although it's still saying something unlike meaningless immersive sim, it can be applied in noncombat and nonleathal situations.

I mean.. Immersive sim…
670

That's screenshot from Isla Paradiso which is The Sims 3 expansion
 
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The phrasing tells bataille royale, meaning a battle fitting a king. Probably related to the ability of a king to muster a large number of figthers to fight each other during a tournament.
 
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Not sure why you are so against googling it. Yea, I could sit here and try to describe it in a clumsy, inexact way, but the dictionary will always be better for certain terms and to gain a clear understanding of what something means. Of course, I would always go to Merriam-Webster as the first resource, because in my opinion, it is the best dictionary ever made, in terms of its definitions.

battle royal:
1 a : a fight participated in by more than two combatants; especially : one in which the last fighter in the ring or the last fighter standing is declared the winner

b : a violent struggle

2 : a heated dispute

It's a very old term, going all the way back to 1671 when it was first known to be used.
 
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joxer said:
It's possible. I wrote what I know, doesn't mean it's correct info.

You can't put Last man Standing as genre definition. Although it's still saying something unlike meaningless immersive sim, it can be applied in noncombat and nonleathal situations.

I mean.. Immersive sim…
670

That's screenshot from Isla Paradiso which is The Sims 3 expansion
Click to expand...
Well you can't say battle royale is last man standing.
They're not the same.

Battle royale could easily mean a whole team wins. It's not because the movie doesn't do it that it's not the case.

Last man standing is one winner takes all and all others lose.



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If you've started thinking about the term "Battle Royale" because of the current trend of games with this "theme", like PUBG, Fortnite and countless other existing or upcoming games, then I can tell you that Joxer's link to the Japanese movie of the same name is 100% the reason they categorize these games as belonging to that genre.

The Hunger Games series is based on a very similar premise but the BR movie was out first and garnered a lot of international attention and the name stuck.

As to why the name "Battle Royale" in particular ... well, it's a Japanese movie with a proper title in Japanese which, as any pictogram based written language, quite often translates very poorly into our Latin based languages (as can be seen in countless JRPG games like FF7 where the main threat to the world is called ... wait for it ... "Weapon" .... really? "Weapon"?). So it may very well be that the original Japanese name for the movie means something entirely different :)
 
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Okay, anything works with me really as soon as the person who hears it for the first time has some idea what to expect there, partially ofc, like in this case where "battle" cannot be misinterpretted with peacemaking, right?

I still want to erradicate meaningless immersive sim whatnot. But me alone versus PCgamer… Not possible. How can one person fight against an "authority" when it comes to games on PC (and gaming PC hardware like i9 lol)?
 
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fatBastard() said:
If you've started thinking about the term "Battle Royale" because of the current trend of games with this "theme", like PUBG, Fortnite and countless other existing or upcoming games, then I can tell you that Joxer's link to the Japanese movie of the same name is 100% the reason they categorize these games as belonging to that genre.

The Hunger Games series is based on a very similar premise but the BR movie was out first and garnered a lot of international attention and the name stuck.

As to why the name "Battle Royale" in particular … well, it's a Japanese movie with a proper title in Japanese which, as any pictogram based written language, quite often translates very poorly into our Latin based languages (as can be seen in countless JRPG games like FF7 where the main threat to the world is called … wait for it … "Weapon" …. really? "Weapon"?). So it may very well be that the original Japanese name for the movie means something entirely different :)
Click to expand...
As far I know, I only watch the movie but at beginning of the 00's, it was a very popular book in Japan. My understanding is the book was evoking the heavy pressure and competition spirit the Japanese society put on childs/teens for their studies. But eventually this point is well covered only in the book and is more minor in the movie.

For me the movie doesn't feel at all like a Japanese movie, you forget quickly all have weird eyes. :p It felt more like a terror/violent B movie of high quality. That's a fan of terror/horror movies that made me watch it. Frankly it has a lot more punch than the first Hunter Game movie, but it's from remembering, a long time ago for BR and much more recent for HG.

About Last Man Standing and Battle Royale, they seem the same rules for the original names. But clearly it's not how it ends, and it's not a team that won, but a group that escaped from the game and flee the island because they succeed break their collars and find a boat.
 
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