At the 2021 Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft held a conference focusing on the Xbox platform. The presentation showcased titles heading to the console, as well as more PC releases. In one of the more surprising reveals, early access MOBA BR, Eternal Return: Black Survival, will be making its console debut on Xbox.
The free-to-play title will be heading to the Microsoft Store on October 19, less than a month away. However, that’s just on PC for now, as the game expands to another storefront. Xbox Game Pass users will also receive additional perks. When the game does arrive on Xbox, it’ll be free-to-play just like it is on PC, so you won’t need Game Pass to jump in. The reveal did not explicitly state how the game will play on the console, or whether it would support cross-play between PC and Xbox.
Bringing a MOBA BR to console
Eternal Return: Black Survival is a first-of-its-kind battle royale game. ER:BS as a BR combines elements of survival games and mixes them with MOBA-like mechanics. The game, created by Nimble Neuron and published by Kakao Games, released in early access in November 2020. Since then, the game has received weekly updates on PC. ER:BS has made some quality of life adjustments as well new character launches since, and it’ll be interesting to see if these are present in the Xbox release.
The reveal also included a gameplay trailer that teased a couple of new characters heading to the game soon. The three new characters teased were hacker JP, baseball slugger Rosalio and fashion designer Mai. Although teased, we didn’t see any gameplay showing the new characters. The gameplay in the trailer was simply footage from the PC version, with nothing new shown.
Jack-of-all-trades developer at Nimble Neuron, Travis “Aesop” Walton, said that the decision to put the game on console was made “months ago.” He also mentioned that this may signal the true end of early access. ER:BS was supposed to exit early access in the first couple of months of 2022. Aesop anticipated the official release to happen once every character from Immortal Soul was ported over, but things may have changed.
The third season of Eternal Return: Black Survival will wrap up at the end of October, a week after the Windows Store launch. Season 4 then kicks off on November 11, before an Xbox version arrives sometime in the near future.
Aesop also mentioned that additional news will be revealed in the coming days.
