Battle Royale game modes have elevated the intensity and scale of shooter games over recent years. We love classic multiplayer and battle royale games, but nothing matches the excitement of clutching up a win with your friends against 100+ other players. If you’ve played a lot of Battle Royale games over the years like us, you know that the strategies applied to one battle royale game often apply to all battle royale games. This is why big names in battle royale games like NickMercs, Ninja, and DrLupo can switch from one battle royale game to another and still dominate.  

To celebrate the incredible deal on KontrolFreek.com for FREE BATTLE ROYALE STICKS with any purchase $30 or more, we want to share our top 5 tips for you to improve at any battle royale game. Whether you play Apex Legends, Warzone 2.0, Fortnite, or PUBG, we think battle royale players of all games and skill levels can benefit from considering the tips we have to share today. While we can’t make you a 40-kill demon overnight, these tips can help you win more gunfights and get more 1st place finishes in any battle royale game(s) you play. 

Know Your Play Style 

This is an important place to start because it affects all other aspects of how you play. Important factors to consider when determining your optimal play style are experience, game mode, squad mates, weapon preference, and goals for the game. If you haven’t logged a lot of hours in whatever Battle Royale you are playing, you may want to adopt a safer and more defensive play style to ensure that you aren’t landing in the hottest area of the map and dying before you even get a chance to practice looting and your controls. You might play aggressively when you are squadded up with more experienced teammates, but safer when you are playing solos, completing challenges, or just practicing. Your play style will affect what weapons and other items you should be looking for while looting. If you are playing with 3 absolute demons, you might be able to help your team win the most by carrying lots of heals or playing as a support legend in Apex, like Lifeline.  

Be honest with yourself and your teammates about what you are trying to do every time you land in. If you really need a win, tell your squad you want to play safer and focus on positioning.  Be patient and don’t rush into fights. Avoiding unnecessary battles can help you survive and give you the time you need to find the right weapons and equipment to win the game. If you are going for high kill games, commit to being aggressive with your teammates. You might be nervous about playing aggressive because it can lead to making mistakes and wiping your team, but taking chances is important to improving at the game and developing new skills. It’s often a good idea to start a battle royale session by landing somewhere popular so that you can get some quick gunfights in to get the juices flowing. It’s important to think about and discuss your play style and goals with your squad mates before you load in so that you are on the same page about loot, landing spots, and you set yourself up for strong communication and teamwork for the rest of the game. 

Learn the Map 

Understanding the layout of the game's map is crucial for success in any Battle Royale game. Familiarize yourself with the different locations and landmarks, as well as the best routes to take to avoid danger or reach a desired destination. When you load into a match, your first crucial decision is where to land? If you are playing solo and you don’t know any locations, you will find that enemies are more densely populated in the landing zones towards the end of the dropship path, as many players are indecisive or AFK. So if you want a greater chance of being able to loot up safely, we recommend jumping early and flying away from the dropship path to a town or named location, where loot is more dense. If you are playing with a squad and they have a preferred landing spot, you should jump with them. When you are flying in, communicate with your squad about where you are all landing and whether you see other teams landing with you. If you do see other enemies, you should land closer to your teammates to be able to support them, but not so close that you are taking their loot. Look for chests or a gun to land on as you are flying in, keeping in mind the range of your upcoming gunfights. For example if you are landing in building with other enemies, you may want to find a shotgun or SMG early, but if you are landing on a roof with enemies you can look down on, an AR or Sniper Rifle might work better.  

Plan for and Practice Looting 

Once you have successfully cleared your landing area your next big decisions are which weapons, equipment, and other items should I keep in my inventory? To answer this question, we’ll first need to circle back to play style, because this will dictate your looting selections as we previously mentioned. If your team is planning on setting up high ground in the center of the circle, you may want to prioritize longer range weapons and defensive items to protect your position. If your team is pushing other teams for kills, you are going to want weapons with fast TTK that can win close range gunfights and items that can help you locate enemies and get the advantage on them if they have better positioning or defenses, such as UAVs and Precision Airstrikes in Warzone.  

Have a plan for what you are looking for going into a match. If you are the best Sniper on your team, tell them to ping one for you if they find one while looting. Think about your hierarchy of weapons and try all of the weapons so you know which ones you prefer and so you know how to use every weapon if you are forced to in some scenario. If you are the least experienced player on the team, you can carry healing and support items to help your team win. If you are playing solo, you should have a plan for what guns you want to carry and how many healing or support items you want, so that you have a balanced inventory and can adapt to most scenarios. It doesn’t help to have 20 grenades if you have no way to heal yourself or shield up and vice versa it doesn’t help to have all healing items. Lastly, always discuss loot with your team. If everyone is carrying shields in Fortnite and no one is carrying heals, you are leaving your team in a spot where no one can recover health in the endgame so communication and coordination is always important to winning more. 

Rotate to the Best Position in the Circle 

The "circle" or "storm" is a common feature in Battle Royale games that gradually closes in on players, forcing them to move closer together. Keep an eye on the circle's location and make sure to stay within it to avoid taking damage. Most Battle Royale games have some way to gleam insight as to where future circles will be. Taking advantage of these mechanics to be the first team to set up at the best position in the circle can be a huge help in winning more. 

You will get better at locating the best position in the circle as you learn the map more. Keep an eye out for high ground, cover, and location in the circle. A rooftop can be a great position to shoot down on enemies from, but if there is a taller building nearby that enemies could look down on you from, your best bet is to either rotate to that building and try to take it, or don’t expose yourself to a potentially higher position where enemies can shoot down on you from. 

Cover is essential for any best position and can range from peaking over a hill to being safely behind 4 walls in a building. A high ground position with no cover is riskier than a lower position with safer cover. Lastly, you should consider not only your location in the circle but enemy locations and where you think future circles might be going. A high ground position can be great, but if the circle is about to move, you should start thinking about how to safely get to the circle. You can use this to your advantage as well. If your enemy has better position than you but they are closer to the edge of the circle, your best bet is often to play defensive and take a chance that the circle will force them out of their dominant position, at which point your team now has the advantage and can shoot them while they move in the open. 

If you are not familiar with the term rotating, it refers to taking a strategic route from one point to another. In battle royale games, rotating to the next circle earlier gives you more options about where to rotate to. For example, if you rotate late and the storm is right on your tail, you pretty much have to take a straight line to the next circle or risk taking damage, and if you encounter any enemies, it’s best not to engage if you can or you will likely die outside the circle. However, if you rotate early, you now have options to take additional routes to higher ground or better position.  

Here are some additional tips for finding the best position. If the circle goes off the edge of the map, it can often be a good idea to find a good position with you back to the edge of the map. This will limit the number of directions your enemies can approach you from and make it easier to prevent being flanked. Sometimes the best strategy to win more is to not have the best position too early in the game, which can seem confusing but if there is a big mountain in the middle of the circle, taking the top of the mountain can be a great position, but you are also making yourself a target. Teams will try to take your position and you will get third partied a lot, which will make you waste ammunition and heals that could become vital in the end game when the circle makes you move off your dominant position and another team with more resources and heals takes you out. To this end, buildings are often the safest positions to hold. If you can position someone at each entrance, you can safely defend a building for a long time while not wasting resources or ammo. Lastly, traversing across these massive maps can be slow and walking out the open can get you killed. You should be aware of mobility items like vehicles, launch pads, shockwave hammers, and ziplines. It can often be helpful to have one teammate in your squad focus on having a vehicle or mobility items to help your team rotate to the circle safely. 

Communication Is Key 

If you are struggling to learn a battle royale game in solos, you should try playing with a squad! Even if you don’t have friends that play, you will be surprised at how many people you meet who are willing to share their knowledge with new players and help them improve their skills. If you’ve read this to the end, you’ll probably notice that this isn’t the first time that we’ve mentioned communication. That’s because effective communication is probably the most important skill to developing a strong squad that can work together to win more. As we’ve previously mentioned, if you are playing with more experienced players, trust them, but don’t be afraid to speak your mind. If you think you can help the team most by healing or being the driver, let your squad mates know so they know what help to expect from you. Start the discussion every game with where to land and what the squad goals are. 

The way your squad communicates in gunfights can determine whether you win or lose. Always call out enemies with as specific details as possible. Consider 2 callouts: “One on me” and “There’s one in my building below me, coming up the stairs”. Which one do you think is going to get the most accurate help from a teammate? When calling out enemies, avoid non-descriptive words like “over there” or “right here” and give specific details like “on top of the red building” or “camping in the bathroom”. Also, depending on the intensity of the situation, your squad may want to agree on callout confirmations. If you say “there’s someone pushing me” to your teammates and they don’t say anything back, you might panic and think “are they coming?”, which might lead you to do something more aggressive than if one of them responded with “Got it. I’m heading over to your building right now.”  

The decision of when to push and when not to push should ALWAYS be a team decision. This is why accurate damage information is essential to winning team fights. If you hit someone with a headshot and you know that they must be at a sliver of health, tell your team, “That guy behind the barricade is one-shot, he must be healing” or something to that effect. One of your squad mates might be able to get an angle on the healing enemy or your squad may agree that this is the time to push and go for the team wipe. Inaccurate information can lead to your team making major mistakes, so it’s important to only share what you know for sure. If you hit an enemy in a building a few times and you see your teammate walking in there, you shouldn’t say “I hit a guy in there. He’s alone and one-shot. Push him.” You should say “I tagged a guy in that building for 75 damage about 10 seconds ago, so he’s probably healed up and he may have teammates in there”. Trusting your more experienced teammates is important to keeping them alive and helping your team win. If your squad agrees that it’s time to push an enemy team, be honest about your role. If you are too far away to help or if you are low health and need to heal, tell your squad so they know what help to expect from you. If you can help them push, you should go with your squad and do whatever you can to help. If your team is taking damage and in a bad spot, use all of the tools at your disposal. It’s always better to waste a powerful item, ability, or killstreak than to be sitting on it after your team dies, thinking you could have used it. 

The most important part about communication brings us full circle back to play style and that is agreeing upon and sticking to the squad goals. If you are someone with no wins or you haven’t won in a while, tell your squad and ask for their help. Experienced players will know how to adapt their play style to give the team a greater chance of winning. If you want to try out a new gun or new character and you are worried about losing a close game for your team, maybe try those things out in solos or agree with your squad that you are going for a more aggressive game where you can try some new things. Nothing breaks up battle royale squads quite like not being on the same page. If you are on a win streak and you want to play it safe for a surer win, but your squad mates are all playing super aggressive and pushing every gun fight, you are going to clash and have some disagreements. Communicating about your playstyle and goals with your teammates can help squads avoid salty situations and win more. 

BONUS TIP (Upgrade Your Gear) 

If you are playing on controller and having any trouble hitting your shots, try some KontrolFreek Performance Thumbsticks. They increase control and accuracy while reducing hand strain by increasing the arc distance for your joystick. This enables you to make fine adjustments to your aim more accurately while applying less pressure with your thumbs. Through 1/29/23 we are offering FREE BATTLE ROYALE STICKS for any customers that spend $30 or more on kontrolfreek.com. 

Also, if you’ve ever watched a killcam of an enemy sniper turning and locking on to you at inhuman speeds and thought, “How can they play on that high of a sensitivity?!” Then we have the perfect controller upgrade to take your game to the next level. KonrolFreek Precision Rings can be added to any controller thumbsticks to enable you to max out your sensitivity while maintaining accuracy and control. These rings make it so the harder you push on your thumbsticks, the more the material will compact to cushion your stick, adding resistance and preventing you from over-shooting your target. 

Finally, if we haven’t stressed how important communication is by now, then let us say it again. Watch any streamer dominating lobbies with his friends. Sure, they joke around but they are always talking, always sharing information and callouts. Strong communication can help weaker players beat stronger players when you work together. No gear is more important for communication than your headset. If you have ever played with that one teammate who is constantly making background noise, making it impossible for you to hear footsteps, you know how important a good headset can be. Check out our amazing SteelSeries Arctics Nova Headsets on KontrolFreek.com and upgrade your squad’s communication game! 

If you want to learn more about how to improve at whatever battle royale games you play, check out our other KontrolFreek Blogs. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date on the latest gaming content and join our Twitch streams for some always entertaining gameplay and opportunities to win free KontrolFreek and SteelSeries products!