Starting today, October 30th, through Friday, November 4th, Battlerite Royale will be free to play as part of Steam’s Midweek Madness. While the once-free mode isn’t F2P yet, Stunlock Studios are hosting this event to boost player count during their Halloween event, and probably to boost their founder pack sales as well.

Battlerite Royale Since Launch

Battlerite Royale is a standalone, paid early access (EA) version of free-to-play MOBA game, Battlerite. The game was initially a free mode that was part of Battlerite, but Stunlock Studios decided to release the mode as a separate title instead, by going through a new EA funding phase:

Later in development, it became obvious that sharing the same balance and philosophy as Arena restricted the possibilities within Royale. For us, this was the choice between creating a mediocre game mode or creating a game with true potential and the freedom to grow.
We will need your input and support through the Beta and the Early Access period to make the best Royale experience possible. (August 23, 2018)

This move came much to the discontent of some, who interpreted it as being merely a manifestation of greed and who feared that the original game would be forsaken as a result of the studio’s resources being consequently transferred to this new title.
However, while the early access entry price may seem high ($20.00) for some of those who had already paid for the original Battlerite game as founders, the argument pertaining to the risk of the original game being abandoned or neglected was not that rational, considering that the game was already complete, with new content mainly taking the form of new cosmetics, which can be carried over to its royale counterpart. More importantly, both titles are expected to help one another grow in popularity and success:

Growing the Battlerite world means not only additional improvements to Arena, it also means growing the game on new markets and creating new titles within the world. It’s important to know that any success in the world of Battlerite is also a success for the Arena, and allows us to pull resources into all our projects

Free-to-Play Event

The F2P event kicks off today as part of the Halloween event. Anyone can try out Battlerite Royale on Steam, for 5 days only. This event coincides with a Halloween-themed update to make the F2P event a bit more special, giving players the ability to try out any of the 21 available Champions.
Battlerite Royale is also available 30% off as part of the Midweek sale, for those you may want to keep playing beyond the F2P event rather than wait for another few months before it gets permanently released as F2P.