Scramble Knights Online ditches battle royale for co-op RPG, hits Early Access today

Funktronic Labs launches Scramble Knights Online in Early Access today on PC and Xbox Series, almost a year after first pitching it as a very different battle royale.

Today, October 26, Funktronic Labs is releasing Scramble Knights Online in Early Access on PC (Steam and the Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series, available day one on Game Pass. On the surface that reads like any other indie launch day. The funny part is that this isn't quite the game that got announced in the first place.

Back in December 2025 the studio unveiled Scramble Knights Royale, a 32-player battle royale with a classic-adventure look, basically a Zelda style survival match. The game ran an open beta test in April this year, and around August the team decided to flip the whole concept: the battle royale focus got dropped in favor of a cooperative adventure RPG, keeping PvP invasions around as extra spice for anyone who wants chaos.

What launches today is just the start of that new version. The Early Access build unlocks the 1-Star area, with roughly five hours of unique content. The plan is to keep expanding toward version 1.0, expected to land around 40 hours of total content across every area, and the studio has already said it expects Early Access to last at least a year.

In practice, players can tackle dungeons and enemies like slimes, crabs and bosses in top down combat, either solo, with friends, or alongside other knights they bump into along the way. Pricing is expected to land between 15 and 20 dollars as a one-time buy, and Funktronic has been upfront that the price will climb as more content gets added.

A game swapping genres midway through development is usually a red flag, but here it tracks. Battle royale is a crowded field dominated by giants and already feeling stale, while lighter co-op RPGs still have breathing room. Anyone jumping in today should calibrate expectations accordingly: this is raw, early Early Access, with little content locked in and a lot still to be built.

The real thing worth watching is how fast updates roll out over the next few months. A studio willing to scrap its whole pitch after hearing beta feedback is showing it actually listens to players, and that's exactly the kind of attitude that turns an Early Access game into something good instead of something that just sits there forever.