When I finished watching The Game Awards reveal trailer for Rumbleverse, the new Epic-published battle royale game that looks a bit like Fortnite but with melee combat, I raised a practiced eyebrow of derision. "Well, that looks terrible," chortled I, knowing full well that I'd still give it a go at the earliest opportunity because I am an absolute sucker for battle royales.
Two things happened later that day that I did not expect. First: I got the opportunity to dive into Rumbleverse's action-packed 40-player matches far earlier than I'd anticipated, as part of a one day early look at the game. I downloaded and installed it in short order, and jumped right in. Two hours later, at 1am in the morning as the servers shut down, I happened across a second, far more unexpected thing. I found myself absolutely desperate to play more. I've sunk thousands of hours into Apex Legends, Fortnite, Plunkbat, Hunt: Showdown, Warzone, and various other behemoths of the genre. Yet those two hours I spent playing Rumbleverse might be the most fun I've ever had in a battle royale.