Struggling Supervive tackles "samey" gameplay with huge map changes

Oh, Supervive. Once touted as a disruptive force that would cause even behemoths like League of Legends to break out in a cold sweat, it's struggled to consistently make waves since its big 1.0 launch last month. Introducing a polarizing grind-based progression system that has given many the ick, while failing to provide enough variation elsewhere to keep players coming back, Theorycraft Games' battle royale-MOBA-hybrid finds itself in a tough spot. However, recent updates have started to get it back on the right track; the latest of which is set to give the Breach a big ol' shake-up for the better.

Supervive is a refreshing take on some of the best battle royale games and best MOBAs out there, pitting your squad of hunters against other teams on a map called the Breach. The hype surrounding its beta was deafening, defining it as one of the year's must-watch launches. But, even then, the lack of variety in its gameplay loop was a major pain point that saw players bounce off of it. This lead Theorycraft to introduce a new system, the Armory, that would keep players engaged long-term through unlockable power-ups that reset every season. The response was largely frosty, compounded by the fact that the Armory's currency, Prisma, was a pain to farm. The studio quickly rectified the rate at which players accrued the precious material, proving once again that it's constantly iterating based on feedback.

Earlier this month, Theorycraft pushed a patch targeting dunking, a mechanic that lets you KO players flying over the abyss by bouncing on them. Now, it's only an instakill if player health is low enough, similar to how ringouts work in Smash, reducing its rampancy at all levels of play. Despite these consistently positive changes, Supervive's continued to drop in popularity. Barely hovering above 2,000 concurrent Steam players at the time of writing, Theorycraft's going to have to bring out the big guns if it's going to super-sur-vive.

The latest dev blog shows the studio ramping up its efforts, and it's taking a different, less-abrasive approach to shaking up gameplay, this time through the Breach itself. Though Supervive's map underwent a major transformation going into 1.0, with the scope to offer more for players to do, it's not been enough to diversify endgame states. What's more, Theorycraft acknowledges feedback from players that "several areas of the new map are still feeling pretty 'samey.'"

"One of the biggest points we heard was that the map feels too chopped up, with too many small islands breaking up the flow of play," Theorycraft says. "This often caused endgames to collapse into the same few tight spots, with the abyss forcing everyone together. Another theme was that abyss fights themselves, though more plentiful, felt one-note. We're tackling that by reintroducing more variety in abyss spaces, with a mix of tighter crossings and wider gaps to keep combat and movement interesting throughout the map."

Exemplifying the changes, Ion Acres and Veingrove will now have a new mid-sized island slotted in between them. Meanwhile, Endshrine's northern landmass is being extended, reducing the amount of surrounding abyss. Additionally, a new bridge connects the northern and eastern Endshrine areas, offering a less-risky path between the two points. This, in theory, should open up different late-game arenas to clutch up in, and inadvertently further nerf the efficacy of dunking.

Elsewhere in the early look at Patch 1.03, Theorycraft's giving the power of certain active items a love tap, bringing them back in line with their counterparts. As Protectors and Controllers have trended heavily towards itemizing a bit too offensively for my liking, the studio's planning to "do a pass" on its defensive Relics and Grips to try and tempt players away from going hard on damage-focused equippables.

After the dunking change, Theorycraft's also been keeping a close eye on the mechanic's biggest users. As it stands, Kingpin will, at some point, be getting some quality-of-life buffs, while the Emergency Platform may be adjusted "more towards creating holdable terrain in the abyss, rather than just existing as 'anti-dunking' tech."

While a big question mark continues to loom over the Armory's future, it's clear that Theorycraft doesn't plan to overhaul one of its core pillars for now. Whether or not this continued tweaking, regardless of its scale, will do enough to get players back on board remains to be seen. If one thing's clear, though, is that the developer is forging ahead on the right path.

If you're planning to jump back into Supervive, then make liberal use of our Supervive tier list to get you back up to speed. If not, then our best multiplayer games guide has plenty of great alternatives.

What do you think Supervive needs to get back on top? Come and let us know your thoughts over in our community Discord server.