Canada
United States
Cuisine Royale or CRSED: FOAD. Is an MMO Battle Royale shooter published by Gaijin Entertainment. It was released as a joke in 2018 but since then has seen some pretty surprising success.
However, it hasn’t been all plain sailing for the game as it has struggled to compete with some of the bigger competition. This led to the game being rebranded in 2020.
This has caused a lot of confusion for fans and newcomers alike. So we’re here with an explanation of what’s going on with Cuisine Royal so you can make an informed decision before you start spending your time and money on it.
Why did Cuisine Royale change its name?
If we listen to Alexander Polyakov, head designer on the Cuisine Battle Royale, he claims, “We think that the new title does a better job of expressing the idea of brutal last-man-standing battles where Champions with mystical powers fight”.
However, I seriously doubt this is the sole reason. If we’re honest, Cuisine Royale was a pretty stupid name. Cuisine and Battle Royales aren’t two ideas I’d necessarily think about putting together.
The problem with the name stems from the fact that Cuisine Royal was only ever meant to be a joke game.
It was released on April Fool’s day in 2018. And the idea behind it was that it was a parody of Battle Royale Games like PUBG.
The game’s gimmick was that players could fight using kitchenware, a pretty clear call back to PUBG’s infamous frying pan weapon.
However, developers Gaijin Entertainment were caught off guard by how well the game was doing. By June 2018 it had gone from a joke to a standalone beta release. By December 2019 it had been officially launched on PC, Xbox, and PS4.
In January 2020 it was doing so well that it was the third most downloaded free-to-play game on PSN. Pretty impressive.
This success came at a cost to the original vision. Gaijin Entertainment had a potential hit on their hands so they began to strip much of what Cuisine Royale had been in the beginning.
The developers dropped much of the cooking theme and most of the jokes disappeared.
Where’s the kitchenware gone?
Cuisine Royale had gone from a cooking-themed parody to a much more traditional Battle Royale game. Indeed kitchenware no longer plays a part in any of the game’s marketing.
All that is left is the kind of wacky outfits and skins that lots of other Battle Royales have anyway.
So, Gaijin entertainment was left with a supernatural-themed Battle Royale with a cooking-themed title. Doesn’t make a lot of sense.
So in December 2020, to coincide with the game’s second season it was renamed to CRSED FOAD.
CRSED stands for Cuisine Royale Second Edition whilst FOAD stands for Fulfilment of All Desires. The FOAD part of the name is taken from the in-universe tournament the games players are currently taking part in.
The new name is still a little confusing. It totally looks like a typo of Cursed Food, maybe as a homage to the game’s roots? Who knows. It’s a long story, check out the Cuisine Royal Wikipedia page for more.
How much does Cuisine Royale cost?
Cuisine Royale launched as a free game and that’s still true to this day. It is using a freemium model that is probably pretty familiar to any well-versed in online shooters.
Whilst the main game is free you can spend money if you really want to. Currently, the game’s CRSED FOAD Steam page has 9 DLC packs up for grabs.
They range from around $10 to $20. As is so often the case, whether they are worth it will squarely depend on who’s buying
If you fork out for all the packs it’ll cost you much less.
Most packs include –
- A hero
- Outfit
- Weapon
- Crowns (premium in-game currency
So for example the Lone Wolf pack includes this outfit –
Which is pretty cool, but I wouldn’t drop $20 on it.
Whereas the Street Kid pack contains this outfit –
Totally not worth 13 bucks.
Besides these DLC packs, you can also sink your money into the game’s currency “Golden Crowns”.
These range from $10 for 1000 Crowns to 13500 Crowns for $100. These crowns can then be used to beef up the Battle Pass or unlock outfits.
More concerningly, they can be used to buy Eternal Grace which is used to unlock new powers and characters. This leads us to our next section.
Is Cuisine Royale pay to win?
The biggest concern with a free-to-play game is whether it’s going to be pay to win.
It’s only fair that the developers and publishers of a game make some money from their hard work. But sometimes they get greedy.
With a free-to-play game like Cuisine Royale, however, the worry is how do they make their money? Is it all through purely optional cosmetic buffs?
Or are lazy/wealthy players going to be able to brute force their way to the top using cold hard cash?
Cuisine Royale is currently skirting the lines of what some players find acceptable. The game’s discussion boards can get pretty fiery.
For the most part, prompts to spend money are to do with cosmetics. Things like new outfits and skins. This is not paid to win and by most modern gaming standards is acceptable. Again the developers have to make some money.
However, the main cause for concern is how Golden Crowns (premium, paid-only currency) can be used to buy Eternal Grace. Eternal Grace is the primary way you unlock more powers and permanent characters.
Many players state that unlocking these doesn’t really give you an unfair advantage and that their win-loss ratio doesn’t change between character unlocks. They say it’s just unlocking more options.
There is no golden pay to win or pay for super-duper damage bonus options for example.
However, the worry is that more options = more strategies for winning. It’s not hard to think that a player with more options isn’t starting with at least a little bit of an unfair advantage.
Cuisine Royale may not be pay to win right now but it’s something the community needs to keep an eye out for.
Is Cuisine Royale better than PUBG?
This is a matter of opinion. How much do you like PUBG?
I’ve never really liked PUBG. PUBG was a surprising upstart when it was first released and spawned a whole new genre of games. It was also a janky mess. However this many years later and an insane amount of money later it’s still a janky mess. A janky mess that isn’t even free to play on most devices.
Cuisine Royale, on the other hand, is free to play and it runs pretty well, especially on consoles. CRSED PS4 not only runs well but there are frequent discounts in the weekly PSN sales. Cuisine Royale Xbox is also a great time.
My criticism of Cuisine Royale is that it doesn’t feel particularly special anymore. Once Gaijin Entertainment stripped it of all its cuisine-based parody, all that was left was a pretty standard Battle Royale game.
It might have quirky characters and some cool skills but it no longer does enough to differentiate itself from the competition. I can’t say it’s better or worse than PUBG because it’s become too similar to PUBG.
Given the choice of paying for PUBG or playing Cuisine Royale for free, however, I’d opt for Cuisine Royale every time.
Conclusion
This article was never meant to be a Cuisine Royale review so I won’t be giving the game a final score or anything like that.
Cuisine Battle Royale or CRSED FOAD if we have to call it that is an ok game. It’s never going to rise to the heights of games like Fortnite or PUBG. It feels like in a year or two we’ll hear that the servers are being shut down and we’ll think “Huh, I played that game for a few hours, it was pretty good”.
The game is free to play and so far isn’t pay to win so there’s no harm in picking it up.
The microtransactions feel kind of predatory but sadly I can’t remember the last time I played a multiplayer game that didn’t have predatory microtransactions.
I would just be careful investing too much money into a game that is barely three years old and has already gone through one major relaunch. Is it a crsed game? No matter how good it is, it feels like it’s failing.
It seems like Gaijin entertainment is looking to milk the game for all its worth. The gameplay numbers on Steam are also pretty worrying, I’d be very wary of spending money on a game with so few people playing it.
Still, no one is forcing you to pay a dime. So if you’re bored of PUBG and Fortnite download this and give it a go. It won’t cost you a penny.
