Fortnite Battle Royale
The idea for "Fortnite Battle Royale" arose following the release of the similar battle royale game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", which saw numerous player count records broken throughout 2017. Seeing its rapid growth and commercial success, Epic Games saw the opportunity to create a battle royale mode of their own. Originally released as part of the paid "Fortnite" game, Epic spun out a dedicated version of the game offered as free-to-play funded by microtransactions, sharing in-game currency with the main "Fortnite" game, allowing players to buy or earn cosmetic items to customize their character, as well as completing challenges through a battle pass to earn additional rewards. , the game has seen over 200 million players, and has been estimated to have earned in microtransactions. "Fortnite Battle Royale" has become a cultural phenomenon, with streams of the game achieving record-high viewerships, and with several high-profile celebrities stating their appreciation of the game.
Battle royale game
One such game was the "Battle Royale" mod for "ARMA 2"/"DayZ", developed by Brendan Greene, known by his online alias, "PlayerUnknown", and first released in 2013. This mod was directly inspired by the 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale", which told the story of a number of students transported to an island and forced to battle each other to be the sole survivor, lending to the mod's name. In Greene's case, to differ his offering from "Hunger Games"-inspired mods, he designed the mod to randomly scatter weapons around the map instead of from a central repository. Greene updated this mode for "ARMA 3" when the "DayZ" team opted to release their game as a standalone title. Greene continued to adopt his format as a consultant for "" before becoming the creative developer at Bluehole of a standalone game representing his vision of the battle royale genre, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds". While "Battlegrounds" was not the first battle royale game, its release to early access in March 2017 drew a great deal of attention, selling over twenty million units by the end of the year, and is considered the defining game of the genre. In September 2017, the game broke the previous record for highest number of concurrent players on Steam, with 1,348,374 players on the game simultaneously. "Battlegrounds" explosive growth and how it established the Battle royale genre was considered one of the top trends in the video game industry in 2017.