PUBG meets Gordon Ramsay in Cuisine Royale

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One of the earliest “advanced strats” in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was equipping the frying pan. This simple piece of cookware could deflect bullets and crossbow bolts, conveniently hanging over your character’s butt. This concept has now been expanded into its own full game, Cuisine Royale.

Yes, it’s a real game: a PUBG clone where the idea is to strap colanders, woks, Dutch ovens, and whatever other cooking supplies you can lay hands on all over your body. Other than a pair of boxer shorts, these pieces of crockery will be your only clothing as you face off against 99 other players all hoping to be the last pan standing.

With the launch of Cuisine Royale, it’s time once again to figure out which battle royale reigns supreme.

If that sounds like a joke, it’s probably because it sort of is one. Cuisine Royale began life as an April Fool’s joke from the makers of Enlist Now. However, now it’s also a real, actual game made by Gaijin Entertainment, the creator of War Thunder and Crossout. The company seems to have got a bit tired of tanks and WWII and entered the battle royale space with its tongue firmly planted in cheek.

It’s definitely taking a couple of jabs at its genre peers. For one thing, the models and animation look very similar to PUBG’s, and Cuisine Royale’s description says it’s offering “free loot boxes with a 100% guaranteed drop chance on the labelled content.” You seem to mostly recieve new underpants in them.

Related: The best cooking games and restaurant games on PC

You can apparently also light up a cigar on the battlefield to turn “into a real Tough Guy!”

Here’s a trailer:

But apart from the kitchen-themed approach to armour, it seems like Cuisine Royale is more or less using available map and weapon assets to do very much what PUBG already does. You don’t fight with kitchen utensils (any more than usual, anyway), you pick up real-world military rifles and pistols and engage in your standard battle royale shootouts. But, this time, you’re in boxer shorts and have a sieve on your head.

You can play Cuisine Royale for free on Steam, or by downloading it at gameroyale.net. I’m still waiting for the download to finish so I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. Maybe this is a new direction for battle royale joiners to head in: If you can’t beat ‘em, be the slightly bonkers version of them.