I still remember the first time I dropped into Super People during its closed beta. It was a Korean battle royale from Wonder People, and from the first match it felt like someone had thrown every battle royale I had ever played into a blender and pressed pulse. There was the movement and gunplay of PUBG, the nonsense of H1Z1, the uncanny resemblance of Black Ops Blackout, the running animations and guns of Warzone, the abilities of Apex Legends, and the cosmetic energy of Fortnite. The result should have been a mess. Instead, it was weirdly handsome. In 2026, with the servers long closed—Wonder People shut Super People down in early 2024—I can still feel the ghost of that strange, polished experiment. The battle royale genre has not stood still. Fortnite, Apex Legends, Warzone, and PUBG: Battlegrounds remain the Big Four, and PUBG itself went free-to-play back in 2022. Yet Super People left a mark because it dared to remix the formula at a time when the formula was already hardening into scripture.
When I played several games of Super People in the closed beta, I had already seen the sensationalist YouTube titles: Is This The NEXT Big Battle Royale? The answer is almost always a resounding no. I wish I could say Super People broke that curse. The age of the battle royale was already dwindling, its life-force choked by the Big Four. There was no room for a new BR, even one as silly and as weirdly polished as Super People. But there was a chance—a real chance—that it could dethrone one of the oldies. I was not thinking about Fortnite or Apex. I was thinking about PUBG. The clunky grandad of BRs. Around for a long time, often found sitting in a corner mumbling about the good old days. Despite its trembling hands and questionable opinions, well over 100,000 people still sat down to listen. Super People took the old man's best parts and rebuilt them with new joints.
What did that look like in practice? You could teleport behind enemies and shotgun them in the back. You could run at 30 mph and leap from rooftop to rooftop. There was a giant, bunnyhopping jeep. The weapons were varied and made little sense, because the game eschewed realism and let you wield an AK-47 and an M1 Garand in the same match. The crafting system was simple and easy to use. I never had problems with gear. The crafting mats were everywhere, and the loot table was generous. The ring changed based on how many players were in the game, which meant I did not spend 15 minutes looking for people to shoot. The art style was crisp, the game ran smoothly, and the gunplay felt sharp. For large chunks of the gameplay loop, it felt just like I was playing PUBG. That is no bad thing. Super People was fresh, even if I had seen it all before.
Here is a quick breakdown of the mechanical DNA I felt in every match:
| Feature | Borrowed spirit | How it played |
|---|---|---|
| Movement and gunplay | PUBG | Weighty, tactical, but faster |
| Teleport and abilities | Apex Legends | Aggressive repositioning and outplays |
| Vehicles | H1Z1 and PUBG | Bunnyhopping jeeps and absurd escapes |
| Weapons | Warzone and PUBG | AK-47 next to M1 Garand, no realism tax |
| Cosmetics | Fortnite | Bright skins and battle pass energy |
| Crafting | Survival games | Simple mats, generous loot, low friction |
The ring behavior was one of my favorite details. Because it adapted to the number of players, matches rarely dragged. In a genre where dead time can kill momentum, that small change mattered. I could drop, loot, fight, craft, and rotate without feeling like I was waiting for the game to start. The classes added another layer. There were several playable classes, and I spent most of one day jumping over players in the super-jeep and blasting them out of the window. Finding balance in all that chaos is no easy task. Wonder People did not always succeed, but they tried things that the Big Four were too cautious to try.
Ring of Elysium is the only other battle royale I can remember giving me a similar sort of fresh feeling while also conforming to the formula everyone knows so well. Elysium has been largely forgotten, but this is what happens to BRs. They arrive. They are played by YouTubers and Twitch streamers. They wither away. Triple-A budgets keep the biggest BRs pumped with content, so it is hard for smaller games to stand up to that pressure. Super People might have done enough to stand out. Despite its popularity, PUBG was on its way out, and a lot of people in the community openly referred to SP as the new PUBG. The game did enough similarly that experienced players could settle right into the gameplay, while also having fun with unique power-ups, abilities, and bunnyhopping vehicles.
In 2026, the story reads differently. Super People is no longer a live competitor. The servers are gone, and the buzz has moved on to extraction shooters, hero shooters, and whatever live-service experiment is currently trending. But the lesson remains. A battle royale does not need to be the next permanent obsession to matter. Sometimes it just needs to be a weird, polished, generous remix that reminds you why you fell in love with the genre. Super People was an amalgamation of every battle royale I had ever known, and it verged on brilliance. It arrived with the sound of a goofy cartoon klaxon and completely out of breath. It did not win the race. But for a brief moment, it made the race feel fun again. If you like BRs, you should remember it.