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.
Fortnite Battle Royale
With the popularity of "Fortnite Battle Royale" by the start of 2018, Epic split off a separate development team to focus on improvements for this mode. Epic said that their attention to "Fortnite" was causing some of their other games to see lower player populations, leading them to reduce development efforts on these games, particularly "Paragon". By the end of January 2018, Epic announced it was shutting down "Paragon" by April of that year, providing refunds to all players. Similarly, Epic announced it had halted development of the planned free-to-play "Unreal Tournament" game, its team transitioned to "Fortnite", though the game will remain available, playable, and open to end-user modifications. Players on a "Fortnite"-dedicated Reddit forum had expressed concerns that a similar fate could befall the "Save the World" mode of "Fortnite", as externally, the "Save the World" mode has not received the same attention in providing updates and improvements compared to the "Battle Royale" mode since that mode's release.