Randori Front
Randori Front is an early game concept by Michael Ten for a persistent, open-world multiplayer tactical combat game.
In short: Randori Front asks what would happen if the tactical tension of a battle royale lived in a persistent world with no matchmaking, no lobby, and no restart. Players enter at any time, play for five minutes or five hours, and every session shifts rankings, faction goals, and territory. When an area gets too crowded, the world responds locally with new pressures and opportunities, so the conflict spreads into many fronts instead of splitting players into separate copies of the map.
Overview
- Name: Randori Front (working title; a trademark check is needed before any commercial use).
- Genres: persistent-world action, tactical shooter, territorial warfare, open-world PvP.
- Perspective: first-person at launch; third-person or isometric views may follow.
- Setting: forests, hills, valleys, rivers, and abandoned installations, with subtle original science fiction: mysterious installations, energy anomalies, and gateway technology that links regions.
- Status: early concept. No prototype, partners, or footage exist yet.
Core question
Battle royale games deliver sharp tactical moments, but each match ends and everything resets. Randori Front keeps the tension and removes the reset:
- No matchmaking queue and no waiting room.
- Sessions of any length count toward something larger.
- The world keeps changing after a player logs off.
Inspirations
These games are reference points for ideas only. Randori Front copies no assets and has no affiliation with any of them.
- PUBG: Battlegrounds: large terrain, sniping, optics, bullet drop, projectile travel time, a shrinking zone as geographic pressure, and 20 to 30 minute matches.
- Foxhole: a persistent territorial war where individual battles feed a larger conflict. Its campaigns end and restart.
- Ultima Online: an early persistent world, divided into shards that act as separate worlds.
- World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2: instancing and layering split shared space, so two players standing in the same spot may never see each other.
- Counter-Strike: precise close-range gunplay.
- Project Zomboid: isometric view and strong modding support.
- A broad sense of mystery and gateways, in the spirit of classic gateway science fiction, built on fully original lore.
Primary innovation: dynamic population pressure
When too many players crowd one area, servers strain on synchronization, hit registration, and rendering. Most games answer by splitting players into instances. Randori Front answers inside the world, locally:
- Environmental disturbances or hazards appear in the crowded zone.
- New objectives open in quieter regions nearby.
- Local combat boundaries shift.
- Neighboring territory gains extra rewards.
- In-world technology events trigger, for example an installation becoming unstable when fighting around it grows intense.
The goal is to create decisions, not punishments. Unlike a battle royale zone, the effect is local rather than map-wide, and the map never shrinks. The result is a network of fronts.
Safeguards
- Pressure builds gradually, predictably, and visibly.
- The system distinguishes temporary gatherings, sustained overcrowding, and deliberate large battles.
- Large battles stay possible.
- A successful defense is never destroyed automatically.
Limits
Dynamic population pressure is a design hypothesis. It supports, and does not replace, scaling technology. Prototypes and simulations must test it.
Sessions without matchmaking
Players enter and leave without starting or stopping the wider conflict.
| Session length | Example activity |
|---|---|
| About 5 minutes | Join near a contested region, fight, help defend an objective. |
| 20 to 30 minutes | A squad contests one location, much like a battle royale match without a new round. |
| Several hours | Campaigns, long defenses, reconnaissance, faction coordination. |
Combat
Player skill matters more than character level.
- Long range: sniper and marksman rifles, variable magnification, projectile travel time, bullet drop, recoil, range estimation, camouflage, elevation. Wind may come later.
- Close quarters: buildings, ruins, underground installations, bunkers, dense forest, industrial complexes, narrow passes.
- Both in one world: a sniper holding a hill can end up in a close fight when a squad climbs the far slope.
- Equipment: the model is open. Options include found gear, persistent inventory, faction supply, and crafting.
Territory and rankings
Territory replaces the battle royale win condition. Individuals, teams, and factions claim, defend, and contest locations such as:
- Communications facilities and observation posts
- Military installations and chokepoints
- Transport junctions
- Research facilities and energy infrastructure
- Gateway regions
Rankings cover combat, objectives, territory, defense, cooperation, and reconnaissance or support. They should not over-reward raw playtime: a player with 20 minutes should still be able to improve. Factions and alliances exist, and solo play must stay meaningful.
A living world
- A player returns after a few days and finds a familiar outpost under another faction.
- Quiet regions turn into active fronts.
- Player activity creates stories the designers did not script.
- Anti-stagnation rules keep any faction from locking territory forever.
Camera
First-person comes first. Third-person lets players peek around cover without exposure, which raises balance concerns. The prototype should pick one competitive perspective and tune around it.
Technical architecture
A persistent world does not require one physical server. Distributed, coordinated servers can each simulate a region. Requirements:
- Authoritative servers and efficient synchronization
- Server-side hit registration and projectile simulation
- Persistent world state and a territory database
- Network interest management
- Terrain, foliage, and client optimization
- Distributed simulation and session recovery
- Anti-cheat and monitoring
Seamless region transitions should keep disruptive instancing to a minimum. The project promises no player count. Targets come from prototyping, weighed against latency, cost, and maintainability.
Possible PvE
Later options, not commitments:
- AI opponents and environmental threats
- Dynamic missions and exploration
- Noncombat activities
Fair play and accessibility
- Rapid entry and short objectives that matter
- Clear territory information
- Solo options
- No advantages earned only through playtime
- Onboarding, configurable controls, and visual, audio, and motor accessibility options
- Early attention to spawn camping, coordinated exploits, and imbalance between veterans and newcomers
Roadmap
Illustrative phases, with no dates:
- Tactical combat prototype: small outdoor map, first-person view, weapons, scopes, travel time, bullet drop, basic netcode. Key question: is the combat fun?
- Persistent world prototype.
- Territorial competition.
- Dynamic population pressure experiments: measure player distribution, fairness, combat quality, and server performance.
- Expanded architecture.
- Worldbuilding and expansion: regions, gateways, factions, optional perspectives, PvE.
- Public testing and iteration.
Comparison
| Feature | Battle royale games | Persistent war games | Randori Front |
|---|---|---|---|
| Session structure | Separate matches with a lobby | Long campaigns | Continuous, enter at any time |
| What persists | Mostly player progression | Campaign state until reset | Territory, rankings, faction goals |
| Crowd handling | Shrinking zone for the whole map | Server limits, queues, or separate shards | Local pressure that creates new fronts |
| Combat range | Long and close | Varies by game | Long and close in one world |
What makes it different
- Persistent tactical combat
- Immediate participation with flexible session length
- Territorial stakes for every session
- Dynamic population pressure
- Long-range and close-range combat in one world
- Grounded science fiction
- A technically ambitious design
No single feature is new. The value lies in the combination.
Intellectual property and originality
- Referenced games serve only for comparison; the project claims no affiliation or endorsement.
- Mechanics and general ideas are generally not protected the way specific expression is.
- The project must not copy maps, characters, logos, art, stories, sounds, code, interface art, or symbols.
- The name, logos, and domains need trademark checks. Patents may apply to some techniques.
- This page is not legal advice.
- The project will not claim achievements, partners, statistics, or footage that do not exist.
Open questions
- Permanent territory, or campaigns with resets?
- How factions form and work
- Respawning rules
- Equipment persistence
- World size and population thresholds
- Fair support for deliberate mass battles
- Ranking design
- Scaling architecture
- How prominent the science fiction becomes
- Alternative perspectives and PvE
- Economic feasibility and server costs
Long-term vision
More regions and gateways, more factions, player-run infrastructure and logistics, environmental systems, and optional PvE. All of this is secondary. The core loop must prove itself in a prototype first.
Presentation ideas
- Tagline: "Enter anytime. Fight for territory. The world continues."
- Hero line: "Persistent warfare. Tactical combat. A world that never stops."
- Palette: deep forest green, charcoal, olive, steel gray, and soft blue, with restrained amber or cyan accents.
- Key diagram: a crowded region, local pressure appearing, players spreading out, several fronts emerging, and a world that does not shrink.