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
While there have been several successful battle royale games, the genre has seen a number of games have bursts of popularity before their concurrent player count drops. In contrast to other multiplayer-only games, the large number of players typically involved in battle royale games generally require a large enough concurrent player base for matchmaking in a reasonable amount of time. "The Culling", by Xaviant Studios, was released in early access in 2016, and was designed to be a streaming-friendly battle royale mode for 16 players. However, following the release of "Battlegrounds", "The Culling" lost much of its player base, and a few months after releasing the full version of the game, Xaviant announced they were ending further development on it to move onto other projects. "Radical Heights" by Boss Key Productions was launched in April 2018 but within two weeks had lost 80% of its player base. "SOS", a battle royale game released by Outpost Games in December 2017, had its player counts drop into the double-digits by May 2018, leading Outpost to announced the game's closure by November 2018.