Battlerite in it self was a second attempt by SLS, first was Bloodline Champions. Battlerite took what BLC was and made it super polished, I loved the gameplay, it was truly all skill, had a very WoW arena feel to it.
But it just seems that this is not a formT that people are into. On the one hand I get it, it is kind of sweaty, OTOH, the matches were super short.
Other notable examples of short burst fun competitive games, that just missed the mark for the general public: OmegaStrikers (basically as dead, still not quite there) and SpeedRunners (still a good pickup for playing with friends, if you strictly play together and don’t practice outside of your group, endless fun).
Generally in the same boat but for the first bit it can be nice, kind of like playing through a story game, but the story is just exploring and getting to know the world.