Forza Horizon 4 is getting its own battle royale mode. That may sound a bit absurd, but hey, you’ve got an open world, you’ve got vehicles, so why the heck not? The new mode is called The Eliminator, and no, you won’t be gunning down fellow drivers along the UK’s pristine highways and byways – this is a kinder, gentler kind of battle royale.

　　Basically, a game starts with 72 players, and you eliminate opponents by beating them in one-on-one races. Everybody starts in a basic Mini Cooper, but you can earn better wheels by winning races or locating car drops around the map. Of course, since this is a battle royale game, the boundaries of the map keep shrinking until you’re down to one final race location – get to that last finish line first and be declared the winner. Check out a brief The Eliminator trailer, below.

　　I know everybody’s tired of battle royale games, but I dunno – this actually sounds pretty fun. It’s also been in the works for some time, with Playground Games beginning development before Forza Horizon 4 was even released…

　　It started very early. It wasn’t even a prototype -- we were really just playing it with our imagination before Horizon 4 even came out. It started as a game that we were playing amongst ourselves where we were just doing head-to-head [races] within the world, and every time you lost a head-to-head the other person would change car, and it kind of blossomed from there into The Eliminator game mode we have today. We first wrote up a formal design for it around that point before Horizon 4 had even come out, and we have been trying to find the best strategic point to do the work to make it and release it to the world, which we have decided is right now.

　　Forza Horizon 4 is available now on PC and Xbox One. The Eliminator launches as a free update tomorrow (December 12). What do you think? Will you be joining the pack?