The best battle royale of all time makes huge comeback with new free game

Before Call of Duty: Warzone's pandemic boom, before PUBG's first chicken dinner, and before Fortnite's first pump shotgun shells were fired, one battle royale kicked off the genre in impeccable fashion - and now it's back.

The battle royale blueprint has become one of the most successful shooter genres ever, with the Hunger Games-esque last-man-standing format spawning a wealth of titles.

From Fortnite to Apex Legends and beyond, the tried-and-tested formula has seen mass acclaim, with players enjoying the constant action and high-stakes gameplay.

But in order for these games to become so successful, one title had to walk before the others could run, and that game was H1Z1.

The title, released in early access in 2015 as H1Z1: King of the Hill (also known as Z1 Battle Royale), was largely considered to be the OG battle royale game that laid the foundations for countless successors.

Some initial game-breaking bugs meant H1Z1 never reached a mass audience, but years of live-service support made King of the Hill into a spectacular title that is retrospectively considered to be the best ever made.

Now, a community project has revived H1Z1, as a free new game called Return Of The King throws us back into the glory days of battle royale shooters.

Return Of The King revives H1Z1 with free live-service community game

With Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov pushing long-time FPS gamers into a new genre of looter-shooters, a void has been left for a new battle royale.

In steps Return of the King, whose name references King of the Hill, which comes as a mod for H1Z1 and runs off the old Steam launcher for free.

Described as an "independent, non-commercial server emulator created to make the classic H1Z1 experience playable again," the project intends to put players back into the most stable version of the battle royale and continue supporting it with fresh content drops and updates.

"Some games you never really stop missing. H1Z1 was the best of them. So we're bringing it back, and we're doing it with you. The king never really died. He was just waiting for you," the creators said on X.

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Importantly, the server access will remain free for players and will only ever benefit the original H1Z1 devs.

"We are fans preserving a game and an experience that matter to us. ROTK will never monetize H1Z1 or sell access to this project," the creators said on their website.

The release was met with some skepticism, given that H1Z1 servers are still alive.

But the Return of the King team outlined on social media that the fresh content drops and seasonal updates will continue to refresh a game that hasn't been touched in years.

"Daybreak tried several times to revive H1Z1, but unfortunately it never really worked out. If the game was truly alive and thriving, we'd all simply be playing on the official servers. The fact that there's a community willing to build something new around it says enough," they said.

"The official servers have been plagued with issues and random disconnects for months, there's been no meaningful new content or updates from the developers in years, and the game has essentially been left behind. You can call it "playable" if you want, but that's not exactly the same as a healthy, actively supported game.

"That's the whole point of this project: we're not trying to "bring back" a game that disappeared from Steam. We're trying to keep alive and give a future to a classic that we all love."

If H1Z1 is well and truly back, you can forget Fortnite's Override collab mayhem, we'll be back to BRs in their purest form.