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
Epic Games had released "Fortnite", a cooperative survival game, into early access near the release of "Battlegrounds". Epic saw the potential to create their own battle royale mode, and by September 2017, released the free-to-play "Fortnite Battle Royale" which combined some of the survival elements and mechanics from the main "Fortnite" game with the Battle Royale gameplay concept. The game saw similar player counts as "Battlegrounds", with twenty million unique players reported by Epic Games by November 2017. Bluehole expressed concern at this move, less due to being a clone of "Battlegrounds", but more so that they had been working with Epic Games for technical support of the Unreal Engine in "Battlegrounds", and thus they were worried that "Fortnite" may be able to include planned features to their battle royale mode before they could release those in "Battlegrounds". "Battleground" developer, PUBG Corporation, filed a lawsuit against Epic in South Korea in January 2018 claiming "Fortnite Battle Royale" infringements on "Battlegrounds" copyrights. By the end of June 2018, the lawsuit had been closed by PUBG, under undisclosed reasons.