Realm Royale beginner's guide and tips: classes, abilities, best weapons explained

Realm Royale is what you’d get if Fortnite had a baby with World of Warcraft. Hi-Rez Studios is capitalising on the influx of Battle Royale games with its own title and it plays a little differently to others on the market, so we’ve put together a Realm Royale beginner’s guide for those who want to jump in on a game that is gaining traction with players and streamers everywhere.

Is Realm Royale an ordinary Battle Royale?

Kind of. As with PUBG, Fortnite and others, you’ll skydive onto a vast playing field in desperate need of supplies before hunting down the opposition. There’s no gliding or parachutes here, everyone lands in the traditional superhero crouch – which is a nice introduction to the idea that fall damage is absent.

Weapons, potions, and armour are randomly scattered throughout the map in chests but you can also craft your own at forges. The game can be played solo, or in duos, or teams of four, and classic RPG elements are littered within the game.

What’s the best Realm Royale class?

There are five classes to choose from in Realm Royale: Warrior, Engineer, Assassin, Mage, and Hunter. Each comes with a unique passive ability which will factor in your choosing of class. Each of the five has the same health and armour capacity, but perks to boost those will help greatly in your first few games. The Warrior is an ideal first class because of his passive ability to regain health at five points per second. Relying less on potions gives you a chance to focus learning weapons and scouting the land.

An Engineer, much like in other games, works well as a defensive option. However, when playing solo you will be a target. Play within a group of four and having an Engineer is a lovely addition. The Assassin is very much about movement with a faster groundspeed than the other classes.

If you want to look further than the opening minutes, both the Mage and Hunter are great once their legendary weapons are in reach. Both the Mage’s fireball and the Hunter’s bow are pretty overpowered right now (some might say they need a nerf) and each hit for ridiculous amounts of health. It’s highly likely that no matter how good you are, if you’re blasted with a ball of fire, you’ll soon find yourself as a chicken.

Realm Royale - what’s with the chickens and chicken trophies?

When you’re inevitably downed in Realm Royale, you won’t crawl around on the floor. Instead you’ll turn into a brightly coloured chicken who carries a flag of surrender. Stay alive in this state for thirty seconds and you’ll find yourself back in a human body and ready to attack again.

As a chicken it will take hardly any damage to finish you off and have you back in the lobby, so it’s worth knowing a few tricks. Obviously, you can’t attack, so you need to hide. Chickens have a slight boost in speed – if you’re inside a building, look to jump out of the nearest window. There’s no fall damage in Realm Royale and a Mage can follow you out of the window with their Soar ability. This gives a much-needed head-start to find some cover.

You’re a smaller target now, so jump, change direction and find places to hide. As you play more games and learn the map, you’ll begin to spot places you can hang out while you regain composure. It’s also worth learning where valleys cut the map and leaping in, this will make you harder to hit. You can be turned into a chicken three times before you are killed outright.

What are the best abilities in Realm Royale?

While each class comes with a passive perk, they all have different abilities which can be picked up from chests and used within the game. Some add movement boosts, others enable you to switch weapons faster or cast brief spells. Think of these as your tactical perks; the assassin for instance can launch a drone revealing enemies, or Ghost Walk, making themselves untargetable. The Engineer can build turrets or defensive walls, even healing tokens. The Hunter can dodge roll, teleport out of situations and lay mines.

The Mage with Soar can become a problem as it gives temporary flight. Catching a Mage with Soar is troublesome but, of course, if you master using it, you’ll make a difficult target to hit. Then of course the Mage has their fireball or ice spells, both of which present problems to opponents. The Warrior, again, is good for beginners as he can create healing flasks or shield himself for small bursts of time, plus he can use Heroic Leap to get out of firefights swiftly.

Learning these skills and how they can benefit you is tough in the middle of a skirmish. As with learning the map, try to find a nice open and quiet area to get used to the new movement skills and learn the cooldown times for healing items.

What are the best landing locations in Realm Royale?

Like most other Battle Royale games there is only one map, however it is broken down into biomes. There’s an ice area, a township, swamps, deserts filled with small tombs. It’s worth playing a few games and dropping into each area a few times. The opening minutes of Realm Royale tend to be quite quiet, so this will give you plenty of time to learn the best spots to explore, camp or scout for later hiding places. Treat each area like a small slice of the game and get your bearings quickly – the differences in sections really help to separate them in your mind.

You’ll soon find favourite areas, of course, but it’s worth starting out in a few areas, should the circle of fog permit. Trinity Hills in Sanctuary is bristling with buildings which will likely yield at least a decent starting weapon and likely some armour. Forbidden Swamp and Fungal Forest, unless the centre of the circle, are often quiet, but limited on chests. Depending on how you prefer to start off a Battle Royale, your choices are plentiful. Badlands is quite open, so if you drop and someone nearby has a rifle, you’re likely to get picked off from a distance. A contrast to this is Everfrost which has high peaks and valleys, which gives both a vantage point and a cover.

Where do you find a Mount in Realm Royale?

The comparisons to MMOs and, most importantly, WoW continue in the mounts within the game. At the moment these are limited to horses, but I’m sure as the games sees more players Hi-Rez will begin to introduce new mounts or different skins.

The mounts enable you to move much faster across the map and can be used pretty much anywhere, except inside a building. Find yourself in a firefight? Mount up and turn tail. Chances are your opponent will also jump on their horse, but they may leave you to recoup. It’s worth noting that mounting the horse takes a few seconds, which will leave you very vulnerable. However, those seconds are precious if you gallop away leaving the other player shooting wildly at you as you disappear over the horizon.

The mounts also give you a great way to reach your teammate should they need help early in the match. But as time ticks by, class abilities may give you superior movement options.

How do you get the best Armour in Realm Royale?

Armour, and indeed weapons, come in the traditional colour spectrum of rarity. White is common, green is uncommon, rare items are purple and orange stands out as legendary. The latter, legendary, can only be crafted at forges or found in golden chests which appear randomly and are shown to everyone on the map (so prepare to fight over them).

With each rarity comes new perks and differing armour stats, for example a plain set of greaves will give you +100 armour, but a legendary pair will give +300 armour and an extra 15% speed when on your mount. The difference between armour is the same for chest pieces or gloves, but those perks are truly needed late in the match. A legendary breastplate will regen 15 health per second, gloves boost reload and weapon swapping speed, where the helmet will cut the cooldown on abilities. Try and build a full set of legendary items to effectively overpower every stat you have.

What should I Disenchant in Realm Royale?

If you open a chest or find items lying around from previous kills, as you scavenge be sure to disenchant anything you don’t want or need. By doing this, you’ll accrue shards (capped to 200 currently) which can then be spent at forges across the map to create legendary weapons, extra potions or bits of armour. Disenchanting doesn’t feature a cooldown, so there’s really no excuse not to do it as often as possible. You don’t want to reach a forge and find you’re unable to craft the items you want.

How do you use the Forge in Realm Royale?

Unless you find a golden chest, the Forge where you will find your legendary weapons. You’re going to need a chicken trophy, though, so make sure you’ve notched at least one kill to your name before heading off to an anvil icon on the map. When you get there, weapons will take time to craft and make a tonne of noise, so prepare to defend yourself.

Each class has a unique weapon and each will deal tremendous damage. They vary a little in how many shots per second you can fire, but it’s in the details where you’ll need to focus. The Engineer’s Plasma Launcher, for example, has the lowest damage but it has an area of effect. The Assassin Sniper Rifle deals 2,200 damage for a headshot, which will take out practically anyone in a Halo style one-hit kill. Want to be Kratos? The Warrior’s throwing axe will launch from your hand dealing 900 damage and come back to you in under a second for another throw. Any weapons you craft are locked to you, but leave them lying around for longer than 10 seconds and someone else could disenchant it.

The Forge also offers a chance to create armour and potions, which is why you need all those shards. Controlling a Forge in duos or teams of four is key to turning the tide against enemies. If you can hold down the Forge then you’ll walk out with the best weapons, but with so many across the map, others will be doing it too.

What are the best weapons in Realm Royale?

Of course, it’s going to be a while before you can hold those legendary weapons and for now you’ll have to make do with what you find in chests. As the rarity scale goes up, so too does the damage, but most importantly is how the weapon feels. Pistols are relatively easy to use and do damage over time, but their range and damage is paltry compared to the shotguns. These have rubbish accuracy though, so keep an eye out for Revolvers; these deal out crazy damage and are simple to use, much like the pistol.

The slug rifle and rifle carry the damage and feature great accuracy. These are the weapons you’ll want until you bag a chicken trophy for the Forge. There’s not a vast array of weapons yet, so don’t expect PUBG style choice, there are swords, however, which are obviously close combat weapons but they don’t damage in an arc, you still have to be aiming at your foe or you’ll be swinging wildly and someone will shoot you in the back.

Can you get Realm Royale on PS4, Xbox One or Android?

Not yet. Realm Royale is in ‘alpha’ state at the moment, which is limiting the game to PC. It is free to play and available on Steam, plus it won’t push graphics cards as much as other games on the market. Browsing through the menus there are sections for BattlePass and a Shop, so it’s clear that expanding the game is on the mind of Hi-Rez. With Fortnite pushing itself onto so many platforms, it would be narrow minded to keep this game strictly on PC.

Realm Royale skins

Dataminers have found a bunch of chicken skins stashed away and a developer mentioned recently that a raptor skin will be available as a mount, probably in the first Battlepass. There are so many options for skins, new weapons (in fact the test server was updated within the last 24 hours, adding in new weapons with instant fire capabilities) and extra classes. Add to this that the game’s executive producer recently announced on Twitter that they’re looking to offer a One Million dollar prize pot for competitive play and it seems that Realm Royale will offer longevity and an esports future.