About

Battle Royale Games are a genre of video games in which many players using an online server are placed in an environment with minimal equipment. The players must then scavenge for guns, armor, and equipment, then compete with the other players in the server to be the last person standing. The genre grew popular in the late 2010s thanks to the success of free-to-play games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite.

History

The genre is named after the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, which features junior high students fighting to death on behalf of the government (this later inspired Hunger Games.^[1]

In gaming, the genre has its roots in gaming mod culture. A Hunger Games mod for the game Minecraft was released in 2012 which introduced mechanics like scavenging for equipment and a last-man-standing winner. A mod for DayZ was developed by Brendan Greene, known by his online handle PlayerUnknown, in 2013. He later created PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, released in March of 2017, which was the first notable Battle Royale game to gain notable success.

Notable Games

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

In March 2017, PUBG was released on Steam Early Access, where it sold upwards of four million copies for Microsoft Windows systems over the next several months. On March 9th, an official trailer for the game was uploaded to the PC Gamer YouTube channel (shown below).

On March 22nd, 2017, YouTuber FrankieOnPC posted a video of one of his first matches in the game, gaining more than 3.2 million views and 4,400 comments over the next four months (shown below, left). On May 12th, YouTuber jacksepticeye released a video of himself playing the game (shown below, right). Over the next two months, the video received over 1.3 million views and 4,400 comments.

The game has been played by millions, breaking the Steam record for simultaneous players in September of 2017 when over 1.3 million players were playing at the same time.

Fortnite

On September 26th, 2017, following the success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a Battle Royale version of the game Fortnite was released in early access. Fortnite Battle Royale was later given a standalone release one could play without having the base game. In September 2017, Bluehole, the parent company of PUBG, who developed PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), announced that they had "growing concerns" over the similarities between their game and _Fortnite_'s "Battle Royale" add-on. Bluehole Vice President Chang Han Kim said in a statement said:

"We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG’s development as they are the creators of [Unreal Engine 4], the engine we licensed for the gameAfter listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known."

On May 25th, 2018, The Korea Times reported that the Korea-based developer PUGB had filed a copyright suit against Fortnite creators Epic Games, alleging that Fortnite and Epic Games had infringed on their copyright. The injunction was filed with the Seoul Central District Court.

Totally Accurate Battlegrounds

Totally Accurate Battlegrounds is a multiplayer battle royale video game satirizing games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds with exaggerated physics and shooting mechanics. Totally Accurate Battlegrounds was developed and published by Landfall, who previously created a similar parody called Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. Initially, the game was intended to be an April Fool's Day joke, but its release was delayed till June 5th, 2018. The game was released for free for 100 hours after its release before retailing for $5 on Steam.

Search Interest

External References