Is Fortnite a Battle Royal game?
Fortnite
"Fortnite Battle Royale" has also become a cultural online phenomenon, with several celebrities reporting they play the game, and athletes using "Fortnite" emotes as victory celebrations. A notable streaming event in March 2018, with streamer Ninja playing "Fortnite Battle Royale" alongside Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, broke viewership records for Twitch to date, and led to Epic arranging a "Fortnite Battle Royale" pro–am with 50 pairs of streamers and professional players matched with celebrities at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 in June 2018. Epic Games is working to develop organized eSports competitions around "Fortnite Battle Royale", including a "Fortnite" World Cup tournament in 2019.
Alfonso Ribeiro
In December 2018, NBC and CBS reported that Ribeiro, along with Instagram star Russell Horning, aka Backpack Kid, and rapper Terrence Ferguson, aka 2 Milly, had brought suit against Epic Games for their decision to feature their choreography in their popular game Fortnite. In Ribeiro's case, his "Carlton dance," which he made popular in the 1990s as a cast member of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, is among one of the many dances that Fortnite players can purchase for their avatars. Epic Games has so far declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Fortnite
All game modes are set to be free-to-play titles, though, as of 2018, "Save the World" is in early access and requires purchase to play. The first two games are monetized through the use of V-Bucks, in-game currency that can be purchased with real-world funds, but also earned through completing missions and other achievements in "Save the World". V-Bucks in "Save the World" can be used to buy pinatas shaped like llamas to gain a random selection of items. In "Battle Royale", V-Bucks can be used to buy cosmetic items like character models or the like, or can also be used to purchase the game's Battle Pass, a tiered progression of customization rewards for gaining experience and completing certain objectives during the course of a "Battle Royale" season.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Since release, Epic Games has added more features, such as new weapon and items and makeshift vehicles such as shopping carts and golf carts. Epic is also able to deploy hot-fixes to the game to adjust aspects like weapon attributes and distribution, pushing these out in minutes if necessary should they or players discover critical issues or glitches. With the release of Season 7 and "Fortnite Creative" mode, an area of the map called the Block will feature a rotating selection of user-made creations developed in 'Creative' mode and approved by Epic.
Fortnite: Save the World
As the game was at its very preliminary stages at the VGA reveal, the goal of this reveal was to seek public interest in the title and potential publishing partners as to decide on the game's release platforms and timeframe. During the July 2012 San Diego Comic Con, Epic announced that "Fortnite" would be an exclusive personal computer title, and the first one to be developed by Epic using their new Unreal 4 game engine, with a planned release in 2013. The game's development was originally started in the Unreal 3 engine, but as they progressed, they had seen the opportunity to work in several of the new feature sets and scripting language offered by Unreal 4 for "Fortnite", while still running on most personal computers at that time. They further opted for personal computer exclusivity to avoid the difficulty of having to go through console certification, and as they planned to be constantly monitoring and tweaking the game, acting as a dungeon master, the personal computer approach would allow them to do this without restrictions normally set by console manfuctures. Bleszinski later clarified that they would not rule out release on other platforms as they developed the title.
"Fortnite"s development was spread among several of Epic's satellite studios, and was also co-developed by the Polish studio People Can Fly, which had worked with Epic previously on earlier games, and had been fully acquired by Epic sometime in 2012. People Can Fly were briefly renamed Epic Games Poland in 2013 as to align with Epic's other studios. By March 2014, there were about 90 developers working on the game. People Can Fly later returned to being an independent studio and their own name in 2015, but continued to help Epic with "Fortnite"s development.
Unreal Tournament (upcoming video game)
Since July 2017, there have been no new updates. The bulk of the developer team has since transitioned to develop and maintain "Fortnite Battle Royale". Development of "Unreal Tournament" was confirmed to be halted indefinitely in December 2018, though the game will remain available in its current state to play.
Fortnite Battle Royale
In March 2018, Tyler Blevins hosted a stream that included Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster all playing the game. The stream broke over 635,000 concurrent viewers, making it the highest-watched stream on Twitch outside of eSports tournaments. By the end of 2018, Blevins had reported he had made nearly from his "Fortnite" streaming activities in 2018 with over 20 million subscribers to his YouTube and Twitch channels. Other notable people have expressed their fondness for the game; the Russo brothers, directors of "", stated that they often played "Fortnite Battle Royale" during breaks on the film's development, leading them to propose the idea of the Thanos LTM for the game. The awareness of the game from well-known celebrities has been considered a reason for further popularity and player growth of the game.
Smokey Bear
The online battle royale game "Fortnite: Battle Royale" parodies Smokey and his motto in a loading screen featuring Cuddle Team Leader, a woman dressed in a teddy bear costume replacing Smokey and doing his signature finger-pointing pose. Below her is the message "Only YOU can prevent V-Buck scams", warning players not to risk security compromises by attempting to obtain free virtual currency offered by hackers as bait.
Fortnite Battle Royale
In October 2018, Epic launched its "Support a Creator" program for "Fortnite". Individual players could designate one of several popular "Fortnite" streamers, selected by Epic via an application process, to support via the game client. That create would then earn money based on how many V-bucks their supporters spent within the game, at a rate of for every 10,000 V-Bucks (roughly, 5% of the monetary value). Though initially planned as a limited time event, Epic found by December 2018 that millions of "Fortnite" players were using the promotion to support more than 10,000 streamers, and since have made it a permanent option for "Fortnite" and hoping this would help some creators go full-time, and plans to extend this program to other games offered via the Epic Games Store, including "Tom Clancy's The Division 2".
Fortnite Battle Royale
"Fortnite" had first been revealed by Epic Games in 2011, considered to be a combination of "Minecraft" and "Left 4 Dead" as four players would work together to scavenge resources to built fortifications, traps, weapons, and other objects to survive monster attacks. The game ended up with a protracted development period, in part due to both external pressures, with the industry transitioning to a games as a service model, and internal shifts of focus within Epic (including focusing attention on their first free-to-play title "Paragon") to meet the external challenges. During this period, Epic made a deal with Tencent, giving them about 40% of the company in exchange for their support for the games as a service approach as well as ready access to the Chinese video game market. "Fortnite" was confirmed to have a planned 2018 release in June 2017, with a paid early access period starting a month later; the game is planned otherwise as a free-to-play title supported by microtransactions. With release in early access, the game featured its primary gameplay mode, "Save the World", where players in teams up to four would work cooperatively to survive and complete objectives on randomly generated maps.
Fortnite Battle Royale
One of the first professional eSports competitions using "Fortnite" was the "Fortnite" Pro-Am event, held on June 12, 2018 during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, with 3000 in attendance. This tournament was announced after the success of the March 2018 stream by Ninja where he played alongside celebrities like Drake. The event featuring 50 celebrities paired with 50 top streaming players competing for prize pool of to be given to winning teams' charities. Ninja and his celebrity teammate Marshmello were the winners of this event.
Fortnite Battle Royale
By September 2018, Sony had made a decision to allow cross-platform play for the PlayStation 4 for "select third-party titles", starting with "Fortnite". A beta version of the PlayStation 4 client supporting this was released for the game on September 26, 2018, the same day as Sony's announcement. A means to merge multiple Epic accounts as well as unlinking console accounts from an Epic account to attach to another are planned for release in November 2018.
CompLexity Gaming
compLexity Gaming (coL) is a professional American eSports organization that competes in "," "Call of Duty", "Dota 2", "", "", "Rocket League, Clash Royale, Fortnite" and "Madden". From 2006 to 2009 they were a franchise of the Championship Gaming Series known as the Los Angeles Complexity. They have previously sponsored players and teams competing in "League of Legends", "", "Dead or Alive 4", "Forza Motorsport 2", "FIFA 07," "Smite, Heroes of the Storm," "Heroes of Newerth and StarCraft II." compLexity was founded by Jason "1" Lake in 2003 as a "Counter-Strike 1.6" clan.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a 2017 online multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole. The game is based on previous mods that were created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for other games, inspired by the 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale", and expanded into a standalone game under Greene's creative direction. In the game, up to one hundred players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves. The available safe area of the game's map decreases in size over time, directing surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team standing wins the round.
Battle royale game
With the success of "Battlegrounds" and "Fortnite", the battle royale genre expanded greatly. Major publishers, including Electronic Arts Activision, and Ubisoft have acknowledged the impact of the growing genre and impact on their future plans. Activision's "Call of Duty" series features a battle royale mode titled "Blackout" in its 2018 installment, "", while Electronic Arts' "Battlefield V" will also include a Battle Royale mode. Some other established games added battle royale-inspired gamemodes, including "Grand Theft Auto Online", "Paladins", "Dota 2", "Battlerite", and "".
Star Wars: Battlefront
At an Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference on June 10, 2013, EA DICE (whose parent company, Electronic Arts, had recently acquired a multi-year license to produce "Star Wars" video games), unveiled a teaser trailer for a new "Star Wars: Battlefront" game, built on the Frostbite 3 engine. The teaser showed a first-person view of the Battle of Hoth, including a crashing Snowspeeder and the foot of an AT-AT. DICE showed additional development footage at the 2014 E3 conference. The game's title was eventually announced as "Star Wars Battlefront". In April 2015, EA announced a release date of November 17, 2015 at Star Wars Celebration. The game is a reboot of the series, focusing on capturing the look of the films. At launch, four planets were confirmed - Hoth, Tatooine, Endor, and Sullust. Unlike its predecessors, "Star Wars Battlefront" does not feature the "Clone Wars" era found in the prequel films, nor does it feature content from The Force Awakens. Free downloadable content (DLC) for "Battlefront" was released in December 2015, featuring the planet of Jakku with two new maps and a new multiplayer game mode. The game also features both first and third-person gameplay perspectives, similar to its predecessors. A gameplay trailer involving the Hoth battle debuted at E3 on June 15, 2015. The game will feature a pseudo-campaign a cooperative experience allowing player to experience game play with one or two players and computer controlled allies and opponents.
Rocket League
In September 2018, Sony had altered its position on cross-platform play following the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale" for the Switch, where the lack of cross-platform play had been a point of significant criticism. Sony allowed "Fortnite" to be cross-platform play compatible with all platforms and stated they would review other games on a case-by-case basis. By January 2019, Psyonix announced that Sony has granted the same for "Rocket League", allowing cross-platform play between PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC versions. Psyonix released a beta client with full cross-platform play features.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It was released as an early access game for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2017, and for iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Android in 2018. It is a spin-off from Epic's "", a cooperative survival game with construction elements.
Fortnite Battle Royale
The game initially launched without any seasonable schedule, but starting with the release of Season 2 in December 2017, Epic has provided new content, which includes new cosmetics, new gameplay elements, and changes to the game's map, on a roughly 10-week basis. This also introduced the use of the battle pass for players to obtain some of this new content by completing challenges and gaining experience.
Boss Key Productions
Although "LawBreakers" was received positively following its August 2017 release, it failed to succeed commercially, leading the team to move on to develop a battle royale game instead of supporting "LawBreakers" in the long term. Subsequently, Brussee left Boss Key Productions in December 2017, announcing that he had returned to Epic Games to work on an "exciting secret project". The battle royale game, titled "Radical Heights", was released in April 2018 as a Steam Early Access title, officially dubbed "X-Treme Early Access". The game was received very negatively and, due to its very early state, described as a mere "cash-in" in the light of the popularity of other battle royale games, such as "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Fortnite Battle Royale".
Battle royale game
There are various modifications that can be implemented atop the fundamentals of the battle royale. For example, "Fortnite" introduced a temporary mode in an event which is 50-versus-50 player mode in its "Fortnite Battle Royale" free-to-play game; players are assigned one of the two teams, and work with their teammates to collect resources and weapons towards constructing fortifications as the safe area of the game shrinks down, with the goal to eliminate all the players on the other team.
Fortnite: Save the World
With the popularity of "Fortnite Battle Royale", which was first released in early access around September 2017 and gained considerable attention by early 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. 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. Epic's Ed Zobrist said that as of March 2018 that the retention rates for "Save the World" have been high, and have grown since the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale", and the company has since improved communications with the player base, such as providing development road maps and known bug lists.
Empire: Total War
Players choose an 18th-century faction and set out to achieve domination over the known world through military force, diplomacy, espionage and economics. The interface and play are similar to earlier "Total War" titles: although the campaign element of the game is turn-based, players can direct battles in real-time. "Empire: Total War" is the first game in the series to allow naval battles to be conducted in real-time. In addition to the standard campaign mode, a special campaign follows the development of the United States from the settlement of Jamestown to the American War of Independence. Players may also recreate several historical battles from the early modern era, such as the Battle of Fontenoy, Battle of Rossbach, Battle of Brandywine Creek and Battle of Lagos.
Fortnite: Save the World
Fortnite: Save the World is a co-op third-person shooter survival video game developed and published by Epic Games. The game was released as a paid-for early access title for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on July 25, 2017, with a full free-to-play release expected sometime in 2019. The retail versions of the game were published by Gearbox Software, while online distribution of the PC versions is handled by Epic's launcher.
Fortnite Battle Royale
In May 2018, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against quality assurance tester Thomas Hannah after he leaked information regarding Season 4. Hannah, who had joined Epic in December 2017, breached the non-disclosure agreement by sharing details of the Season with Adam DiMarco. DiMarco later shared information in a Reddit post, spoiling the theme of the Season. Epic stated that Hannah "diminished the enjoyment of the people who play, or who watch others play, Fortnite by ruining the suspense that had been building in the Fortnite community in anticipation of upcoming season".
Fortnite Battle Royale
Epic has the ability to include limited time modes (LTM) within the game, which provides Epic with experimental capabilities and gain feedback from players to improve upon. One of its earliest additions was a 50-v-50 mode, placing players randomly on one of two teams and dropping them on opposite sides of the map, giving the two teams time to gather resources, create fortifications, and hunt the other team before the storm moved in. Shortly after the launch of the film "", Epic ran a Marvel-sponsored event that featured the Infinity Gauntlet that randomly spawned on the map; any player that equipped it became Thanos with added abilities. A sandbox Playground LTM was introduced in June 2018, which allows up to four players to explore and build anything anywhere on the battle map, while being able to fight each other and respawn upon defeat until the storm covered the map after an hour and eliminated them all; Epic later made this a permanent mode in the game.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
"Battlegrounds" received positive reviews from critics, who found that while the game still was not fully finished and had some technical flaws, it presented new types of gameplay that could be easily approached by players of any skill level and was highly replayable. The game received several Game of the Year nominations among other accolades, and is considered by Greene to be the defining game of the battle royale genre. Several other video games, following in "Battlegrounds" success, added battle royale-style modes, while a number of clones, primarily out of China, also appeared. PUBG Corporation has run several small tournaments and introduced in-game tools to help with broadcasting the game to spectators, as they wish for it to become a popular esport.
Fortnite Battle Royale
For the first five seasons, all ports of "Fortnite Battle Royale" support cross-platform play with other versions, but with limited interaction in regards to the PlayStation 4. That is, players on personal computer and mobile versions can cross-play with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch users, or alternatively they can cross-play with PlayStation 4 users. While Epic Games has expressed interest in having full cross-platform play across all available platforms, Sony's continued refusal to allow cross-play between the PlayStation 4 and other consoles rendered this impossible during the game's first year of operation, according to Microsoft. Further, while players can use a single Epic Games account to share progress in "Fortnite Battle Royale" on all other platforms, those who used their PlayStation Network credentials to establish their Epic account cannot use that account on other platforms. The account restriction was confirmed to be as a result of Sony's initial decision to prohibit cross-platform play between its PlayStation 4 and other consoles, rather than a choice Epic had made.
Fortnite
While the first two games have been successful for Epic Games, "Fortnite Battle Royale" became a resounding success, drawing in more than 125 million players in less than a year and earning hundreds of millions of dollars per month, and since has been a cultural phenomenon.
Battle royal
"Battle royal" implied a fight that was fit for royalty, and thus described large combative events. It originally was used to describe cockfights, but expanded around the 18th Century to include human fights, including fisticuffs combat between a large number of people, and sea-going battles between equally matched armadas. Within the 19th century, the term began to be used to describe forced combat between slaves in the United States, giving it a more negative meaning.
Last man standing (gaming)
Battle royale games, such as "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Fortnite Battle Royale", discourage camping by gradually reducing the size of the area where LMS competitors can play on, typically with a deadly energy field. Any players who do not move to safer ground as the field closes in will suffer continuous damage and eventually die if they fail to escape it.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
The game features a traditional single-player arcade mode, in which players must defeat several randomly-selected opponents, followed by a character-specific rival battle and, ultimately, a battle against the game's main antagonist and final boss, Polygon Man, the former mascot for the Sony PlayStation in North America. Multiplayer modes include time-based matches, where players compete to achieve the most kills within a time limit; stock-based matches, where players attempt to be the last one standing; and kill-limit matches, where players compete to be the first to reach a certain number of kills. The game also features a single-player challenge mode, in which players attempt to complete specific objectives. Completing matches and fulfilling objectives with a character will gain them experience points; leveling up a character will unlock bonuses such as in-game costumes, victory animations, and profile icons. The game features cross-platform play between the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions.Rumors begin circulating that an unknown entity is seeking the strongest warriors in all worlds, gathering many powerful opponents to prove itself superior. Heroes and villains from the many worlds begin searching for this new threat, either seeking to protect their worlds or in pursuit of fortune. After crossing many worlds and defeating those they encounter along the way, the player character encounters the source of the challenge, Polygon Man, who attacks them. After Polygon Man is defeated, the victor absorbs his power and returns to their own world, where they decide how to use their newfound power.
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.
Fortnite: Save the World
The paid-for product "Fortnite" provides two distinct modes: access to "Fortnite Battle Royale" (which is also available as a separate free-to-play title) and the cooperative player-versus-environment "Save the World", which is unique to the main "Fortnite" game.
Fortnite
"Fortnite" began from an internal game jam at Epic Games following the publishing of "Gears of War 3" around 2011. Though it was not initially one of the developed titles during the jam, the concept of merging the construction game genre, representing games like "Minecraft" and "Terraria", and shooter games arose, leading to the foundation of "Fortnite". Development of "Fortnite" slowed due to several issues, including switching from the Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4, a deeper role-playing game approach to extend the life of the game, and a switch of art style from a dark theme to a more cartoonish style. Further, Epic was looking to get into the games as a service model, and brought in Chinese publisher Tencent to help; Tencent took a large stake in Epic as part of this, leading to the departure of several executives, including Cliff Bleszinski, who had been a key part of "Fortnite"s development. "Fortnite"s approach was changed to be Epic's testbed for games as a service, and further slowed the development.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
Development of "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale" began in 2009 under the working title of "Title Fight". The game's existence was leaked prior to its official announcement in April 2012, along with a significant number of its playable characters. "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale" was one of the first games to be included in Sony's "Cross-Buy" program, allowing those who purchased the game for PlayStation 3 to receive a free copy of the PlayStation Vita port.
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.
Fortnite
In 2017, the game was nominated for "Best Co-op Game" by "PC Gamer", and for "Best Spectator Game" by IGN. In 2018, the game won the award for Best Ongoing Game by "PC Gamer" and IGN, the latter of which nominated it for "Best Nintendo Switch Game", "Best Mobile Game", and "Best Action Game".
Battle pass
At the same time as "Fortnite" was becoming a success, the video game industry had been dealing with the issue of loot boxes, another monetization scheme where players spend funds to open boxes containing a random assortment of in-game items. From November 2017 onward, the use of loot boxes was under scrutiny from the industry and several government-related groups, believing they encouraged gambling, particularly for young players. Battle passes were seen as a preferable option to loot boxes, as players would be able to see all the rewards they could earn, even if they needed to spend a great deal of time completing all the tiers, assuring players continued to play the game. Further, by offering the means for players to buy into completing tiers, publishers could also see additional revenue.
Loser (hand gesture)
In the game Fortnite Battle Royale, there is an emote called "Take the L", which uses the Loser gesture on a dance.
Fortnite Battle Royale
In October 2018, Epic Games sued YouTuber Brandon Lucas, who posts videos on the channel, Golden Modz. The lawsuit details that Lucas, cheats at the game and "...promotes, advertises and sells software that enables those who use it to cheat." The lawsuit also names Lucas's secondary website in which visitors are encouraged to purchase the hack and/or Fortnite user accounts preloaded with hacks.
Battlerite
In May 2018, the developers announced the development of a new free-to-play game mode based on the battle royale genre planned to be released in the summer of the same year. In August 2018, the developers announced that the game mode would no longer be free and instead would be released as a standalone game planned to be released by the end of September of the same year.
Battle Royale (novel)
Video game adaptations of the battle royale survival concept became popular in the mid-2010s, with the early examples of the "Battle Royale" mods for "Arma II: DayZ", the stand-alone edition of DayZ and "ARMA 3", concept subsequently transposed into full games like "", "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Fortnite Battle Royale".
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Greene said that while he had envisioned the battle royale format to be a spectator sport since his "ARMA II" mod, their approach to making "Battlegrounds" an esport would be a matter of taking "baby steps". Greene said that they would not actively pursue esports until after the game was fully released and that all major bugs were eliminated. The Gamescom 2017 event demonstrated the issues surrounding the logistics of running a large "Battlegrounds" tournament with a large number of players involved, and they had worked alongside ESL to explore how to do this effectively in the future. Further, Green stated there was also the need to establish a format for presenting a "Battlegrounds" match to make it interesting to spectators, which he thought would take some time to develop given the nature of the emergent gameplay, comparing it to established first-person shooters and multiplayer online battle arena esport games. A 20-team, 80-player tournament produced by Intel took place in Oakland in November 2017, with a prize pool of 200,000.
Battle royal
Along with the "Battle Royale" franchise itself, other examples of battle royale films include "The Hunger Games" franchise (2008 debut), "The Purge" series (2013 debut), and "Assassination Nation" (2018). Popular examples of battle royale games include "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (2017), and "Fortnite Battle Royale" (2018).
Karagöz and Hacivat
In 2018, the character Hacivat appeared in the video game "Fortnite: Battle Royale" as an unlockable costume, introduced during the game's fifth season. It can be purchased with in-game currency.
Paragon (video game)
Upon release of Epic's "Fortnite"s "Battle Royale" mode in late 2017, Epic decided to reduce the development team supporting the game in favor of "Fortnite," as "Paragon's" limited growth did not meet expectations. Ultimately, in January 2018, Epic announced they would be closing down "Paragon" by April of that year, providing full refunds to all players.
Fortnite Battle Royale
The Android version is not distributed on Google Play Store: users must sideload an installer app from an Android application package (APK) file downloaded from the Epic Games website (although on Samsung devices, the app is also available via the internal Samsung Galaxy Apps service). Epic Games stated that it wanted to have a direct connection to the players of the game, and did not want its microtransactions to be subject to Google Play Store's 30% revenue sharing requirement (considering them disproportionate to the types of services the store provides). Security experts expressed concern over this decision, since this requires users to modify security settings in default Android distributions to allow third-party sites to install Android application packages (APK). This setting can make users, particularly younger players, prone to potential malware, including clones of "Fortnite" that install malicious programming. About a month after the Android release, there were at least 32 clones of the "Fortnite" installer on the Google Store, with half found to include malware. Epic's installer for Android does include a warning message following the install that users should re-enable security controls and warns users of only downloading content from trusted sources. The initial installer was found by Google to have a potential vector that would allow for malware to be installed, though this was patched within 48 hours of discovery and Epic did not believe anyone used the vector.
Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane appeared in the mobile online game "Fate/Grand Order" as an Archer-class Servant able to be summoned by the main character (2015). In the RPG game "Fallout 3" Calamity Jane is referenced by the Lone Wanderer in a dialogue option when first talking to Megaton sheriff and mayor, Lucas Simms. A character in a card board game BANG! - Calamity Janet. In Season 6 of Fortnite Battle Royale,one of the main skins of the season is a gunslinger and cowgirl named "Calamity". The game "Calamity the Natural world" a line of educational games made in the 90's for the PlayStation by Lightspan Adventures, stars Calamity Jane.
SpringSpree
GameDome is one of the largest student-organised gaming event in South-India. It hosts competitive games such as Counter-Strike, FIFA, Need for Speed, DOTA, League of Legends, Age of Empires along with Overwatch, Fortnite, World of Warcraft, Doodle Army 2: Mini Militia, Clash of Clans etc. The event sees hundreds of selected players from all over the country.
BattleSphere
There are five game modes to be found in the game: Alone Against the Empire is an exclusive mode to Single Console inspired by "Star Raiders", where players has to command allied spacecrafts and protect their starbases in a set of 64 hexagonal quadrant sectors from attacks by an armada of enemy fighters, bombers, superships and obliterate enemy starbases in higher difficulties. In this mode, the 0 and # buttons on the keypad are used for repairing the ship and jump into hyperspace respectively. Gauntlet is a endless mode similar in structure to "Missile Command", where the main objective is to defend six starbases in a single sector from a wave of enemies trying to destroy them with each wave increasing in difficulty. Free-For-All is a arcade-style deathmatch mode in vein of "Doom" and "Quake", where players attempts to destroy a set number of starships in order to either reach a fixed number of kills or high score. Pilot Training is a practice mode recommended for beginners and it is a series of 20 training missions in order to be familiarized with the controls and the type of enemies in the game but increases in complexity as players move forward.
Battle Sphere is a capture the flag mode exclusive to Network Mode similar to "Netrek", where two opposing teams divived across eight consoles attempt to capture or destroy each other's starbases. In addition, there is also a Demo Mode for demonstration purposes.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Journalists attributed "Fortnite Battle Royale"s success over "PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds" as a combination of several factors: besides being free-to-play and available on consoles, the game was released at a time when "Battlegrounds" was struggling with game cheaters and a toxic community, and that it features a less violent, cartoonish quality to it that, like "Minecraft", was able to draw in a younger and mixed-gendered audiences to play. Further, Epic has maintained frequent updates for the game, adding new weapons and in-game tools alongside limited-time events and longer-term narrative elements that help to further draw in players. The high interest in the game within March 2018, which has been able to draw larger audiences compared to existing multiplayer games like "Grand Theft Auto Online" and "Destiny 2", has had a financial impact on competing publishers Take-Two Interactive and Activision Blizzard, their stocks having fallen during this period, according to analysts from Morgan Stanley and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick, on their quarterly results released May 2018, stated that "Fortnite is definitely a lot of competition right now...it’s been a really important catalyst in attracting new gamers to gaming", and the company is looking to develop its own battle royale title. Electronic Arts CEO Blake Jorgensen also considered both "Fortnite Battle Royale" and "Battlegrounds" as having a significant market impact. Jorgensen said " [Fortnite is] bringing younger people into the marketplace and younger people into first-person shooters, and I think that's good for the long run health of that category for all of us in the industry". Non-video game entertainment companies have also seen the impact of "Fortnite". Netflix, in reporting its Q4 2018 results, stated that their competition is more with "Fortnite", including streaming content related to the game, rather than rival television network stations like HBO.
Fortnite
A creative mode launched on December 6, 2018, coincident with the start of Season 7 of "Fortnite Battle Royale". Here, each player has access to a private, persistent island which they construct buildings and add and manipulate objects as desired. Players are able to invite friends to this island, and participate in unofficial games such as race tracks or jumping courses. Initially, only players who bought the Battle Pass could get their own private island, but players who didn't purchase it got access to this game mode for free on December 13.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
IGN gave the game an 8/10, declaring "It combines characters, environments and ideas into a tight package that’s worthy of consideration for anyone who owns a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita and considers themselves a brand loyalist or simply a longtime fan ... I know it’ll be hard for some skeptics to believe, but PlayStation All-Stars is its own game, and it even happens to do some things better than what inspired it." GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10, commenting "There are better, more fluid games out there for the serious fighter, and there are more accessible ones for those interested in a bit of silliness. In attempting to mix the two, "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale" merely ends up being competent at both and the master of neither."
Video games and charity
Epic Games ran a celebrity "Fortnite Battle Royale" pro-am during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 in June 2018, which paired 50 popular streams with 50 celebrities, with an overall prize pool to be given to the winners in the names of their desired charities.
Cross-platform play
One technical challenge that faces console-based cross-platform play is the network communication between platforms, managing the different protocols used by each service. However, the technical limitations can be overcome, with at least three developers stating they could enable cross-platform play within a day once they were allowed to do so. A "configuration issue" briefly allowed computer, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One players to play alongside each other in the online cooperative game "Fortnite" in mid-September 2017. This had not been an expected feature of the game, as cited by the game's current specifications. While Epic Games corrected the configuration and stated this was a mistake, the brief situations demonstrated that technical barriers to cross-platform play can be met. Later in March 2018, Epic announced plans to take the spinout title, "Fortnite Battle Royale" Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and mobile devices, with cross-platform play enabled between PC, PlayStation 4 and mobile, and PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and mobile.
Battle pass
The popularity of battle passes grew in 2018 with the use in Epic Games's "Fortnite Battle Royale", which released in September 2017. The free-to-play "Fortnite Battle Royale" adopted a "season"-driven release schedule, each season lasting 10 weeks, during which they offered a new set of cosmetic items and emotes. The battle pass approach was added starting in its second season, during a time when the game was seeing a large growth in its player base, and has been used by the game since. Battle passes are purchased through an in-game currency (V-bucks) which either must be purchased with real-world funds via microtransactions, or earned via the "Fortnite: Save the World" cooperative game mode. Analyst Michael Pachter estimated that on the first day of the third season, in February 2018, Epic sold more than five million battle passes, generating over in revenue in a single day. With expansion of "Fortnite" to mobile devices in March 2018, revenue estimates from the game were in the hundreds of millions of dollars per month in the following months, primarily from battle pass sales.
Fortnite: Save the World
By 2014, "Fortnite" was at a "pretty functional prototype" with most of the Unreal 4 engine elements smoothed out, according to Mustard. Epic anticipated it would still take about three more years to complete, not only in polishing and balancing the game, but setting in place the necessary backend elements for the games-as-a-service model. To help support development and get player feedback, Epic used a series of closed alpha test periods. The game's first closed alpha, called Online Test 1, ran from December 2 to 19, 2014, while Online Test 2 ran from March 24 to April 14, 2015. Epic said the first alpha was designed to help it "make sure all of our basic systems are working" and establish "a baseline for how people play in order to make Fortnite better." After being demoed at WWDC 2015 on Mac, "Fortnite" entered closed beta testing in the fall of 2015. Approximately 50,000 players participated in these periods.
Fortnite Battle Royale
A release of "Fortnite" for the Nintendo Switch video game console had been rumored in the week prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 in June 2018. During the Nintendo Direct presentation, Nintendo and Epic Games announced the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale" for the Nintendo Switch, supporting cross-platform play with any other platform except the PlayStation 4; such users are able to carry over their inventory, Battle Pass status, and in-game currency between these platforms through their Epic user account. The game was released on June 12, 2018, the same day as the announcement. It is the first game to support direct voice chat through the Switch console.
Pokimane
Anys also has been noted to stream gameplay and commentary of "Fortnite", which she first streamed as part of a sponsorship. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2018, Epic Games, the developers of "Fortnite", arranged a pro–am event. The event paired streamers with mainstream celebrities in a match of "Fortnite"s "Battle Royale" mode; Anys was paired with rapper Desiigner.
Unreal Engine
To prepare for the release of its free-to-play "Battle Royale" mode in "Fortnite" in September 2017, Epic had to make a number of Unreal Engine modifications that helped it to handle a large number (up to 100) connections to the same server while still retaining high bandwidth, and to improve the rendering of a large open in-game world. Epic will incorporate these changes into future updates of the Unreal Engine.
Avengers: Infinity War
A week before the film's release, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was lit up each night for the film, counting down to its release. Marvel also featured tie-in events across seven of their mobile games to promote the film. In early May 2018, Marvel and Epic Games announced the "Infinity Gauntlet Limited Time Mashup" mode for "Fortnite Battle Royale", where players could find the Infinity Gauntlet hidden on the game map and become Thanos with added abilities. The Russo brothers were fans of "Fortnite" and approached Donald Mustard, the worldwide creative director of Epic Games, about the potential for a crossover between the properties. On November 20, 2018, Little, Brown and Company published "Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War: Thanos – Titan Consumed", written by Barry Lyga. Despite not existing within Marvel Studios' MCU canon, the novel explores the origins of Thanos before the events of the film. Lyga noted he spoke with Marvel Studios to get an "outline of who Thanos is and what he means to the movies", and "was given great latitude and a free hand [in some areas of the story], while in others I had to tip-toe very carefully through the MCU".
Fortnite Battle Royale
Individual platform releases saw initial surges in player counts. Within a day of becoming available, the Nintendo Switch version had been downloaded over 2 million times, according to Nintendo. Epic said that "Fortnite" had been downloaded over 15 million times for Android within three weeks of its launch. On the release of Season 5 in July 2018, Akamai Technologies reported that "Fortnite" traffic neared 37 terabytes per second, the largest recorded amount of traffic for any video game that they have observed. With its quarterly financial report ending September 30, 2018, Nintendo said that "Fortnite Battle Royale" had been downloaded on about half of all Switch systems they have sold, representing about 11.5 million downloads.
Fortnite Battle Royale
During mid-2018, Epic started running a Summer Skirmish series over 8 weeks, each week having a different format, with to be offered to winners throughout the series. The series had some initial problems; the first week event was cut short due to technical issues with game servers, while the second event ended with accusations of cheating towards the winner which Epic later verified were not true. Epic launched its second competition play series, the Fall Skirmish, on September 21, 2018, with up to in prizes for winners.
Fortnite Battle Royale
"Fortnite Battle Royale" has been jokingly referred to as the honomyn "Fork Knife" on social media, believed to have originated with people, unfamiliar with the game, described their friends and family spending time playing the game. Epic added a harvestable, non-playable "Fork Knife" food truck to the game map as the term gained popularity. In September 2018, "Fortnite" was featured as a question on the game show "Jeopardy!", and was spoofed in a skit on the September 29, 2018, episode of "Saturday Night Live". The "South Park" episode "The Scoots" featured the cast wearing "Fortnite"-based Halloween costumes. In "The Big Bang Theory" episode "The Citation Negation", Bernadette attempts to learn how to play "Fortnite Battle Royale" to beat Howard. "Fortnite" also makes an easter egg appearance in the Disney animated film "Ralph Breaks the Internet". "Fortnite" was a central focal point on the 2018 YouTube Rewind year retrospective, and included an appearance by Ninja.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Separately, other security experts have found exploits with "Fortnite" and its underlying services that allow hackers to gain access to some accounts, enabling them to gain personal details, buy V-bucks, and listen in to the account's owner when they use the game's voice chat system. Epic has closed a key exploit that enabled this by January 2019.
BattleForge
BattleForge is a discontinued video game that was developed by EA Phenomic and published by Electronic Arts in 2009. "BattleForge" is an online card-based real-time strategy (RTS) game. The game's servers were shut down on October 31, 2013.
Fortnite Battle Royale
In October 2017, Epic Games filed civil complaints against two associates of the website Addicted Cheats, which for a payment provided cheating services to players. The company argued that the two defendants made and used altered game breaking code that was against the End User License Agreement and the Copyright Act.
Kirby Battle Royale
"Kirby Battle Royale" is a brawler video game played primarily from a top-down perspective. Players control the series' titular protagonist Kirby and must battle against other versions of himself in an arena. The game features a single-player story campaign along with cooperative play and multiplayer battle modes that are available to play locally and online.
Battle Royale (film)
"Battle Royale" has been influential in global popular culture. Since the film's release, the term "battle royale" has been used to refer to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment inspired by the film, where a select group of people are instructed to kill each off until there is a triumphant survivor. It has inspired numerous media, including films, manga, anime, comics, visual novels, and video games; the battle royale game genre, for example, is named after the film.
Fortnite: Save the World
"Fortnite" is set in contemporary Earth, where the sudden appearance of a worldwide storm causes 98% of the world's population to disappear, and zombie-like creatures rise to attack the remainder. Considered by Epic as a cross between "Minecraft" and "Left 4 Dead", "Fortnite" has up to four players cooperating on various missions on randomly-generated maps to collect resources, build fortifications around defensive objectives that are meant to help fight the storm and protect survivors, and construct weapons and traps to engage in combat with waves of these creatures that attempt to destroy the objectives. Players gain rewards through these missions to improve their hero characters, support teams, and arsenal of weapon and trap schematics to be able to take on more difficult missions.
Cross-platform play
With the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale" on the Nintendo Switch during E3 2018 in June, Sony's approach to cross-platform play drew further criticism. The game supports cross-platform play across personal computer, Xbox One, and mobile devices, with players normally able to use a single Epic Games account, which may be linked to a platform-specific account, to carry over progress and purchases between any of those platforms; the Nintendo Switch version also works in this same manner. However, players found that if their Epic Games account was tied to a PlayStation Network account, they could not use that profile on the Switch or other versions of the game, requiring them to either create a new Epic account, or unlinking their PlayStation Network account from their Epic account which completely resets the player's progress. The PlayStation 4 version also remained limited in only allowing its players to cross-platform play with personal computer and mobile devices and not the Switch or Xbox One versions. Nintendo affirmed that this was a decision made by Sony, as they otherwise would want to be open to all forms of cross-platform play. Many gamers and even video game journalists accused Sony of forcing the restrictions to prevent PlayStation 4 players from playing on other platforms. Sony stated in response that they are still open to what players wanted, and that "With... more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we've built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles". Journalists took Sony's reaction as a message from Sony that providing cross-platform play on other consoles would be a threat to the market dominance of the PlayStation 4, which, at the time, has the current largest number of users compared to Xbox One or Nintendo Switch. John Smedley, a former president of Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Game Company), stated that during his time with Sony, the reason the executives gave him for rejecting cross-platform play support was simply a financial motive, claiming, "they didn't like someone buying something on an Xbox and it being used on a Playstation". Sony's stocks fell approximately 2% in the days after this event, largely due to outrage from the large "Fortnite" player base.
U.S. Army Esports
U.S. Army Esports is an esports team sponsored by the United States Army. The team – formed of active duty and reserve personnel – was announced in November 2018 as a public outreach initiative operating within the Fort Knox, Kentucky-based Army Marketing and Engagement Team. Games in which the team has announced competition include "Call of Duty", "PUBG", "League of Legends", and "Fortnite".
Fortnite: Save the World
The game is supported through microtransactions to purchase in-game currency that can be used towards these upgrades. A standalone battle royale game version, "Fortnite Battle Royale", was released for the same platforms in September 2017. Following the release, the player-versus-environment mode was officially distinguished as "Save the World".
Fortnite: Save the World
"Fortnite"s early development hit a number of roadblocks. First, Epic began using "Fortnite" as the testing ground for the new Unreal Engine 4, which slowed some development. A further factor was recognizing that to maintain interest in the game, it needed to have deep systems for player progression and itemization, similar to computer role-playing games. They reached out and brought in system designers from popular massively multiplayer online games, including Darren Sugg, to gain input on how to create these types of systems. A culminating issue in the slowdown was the investment from Tencent in Epic Games in 2012, which transitioned a number of high-level executives, including Bleszinski, out of the company. Epic had recognized they needed to prepare for offering games that followed the games as a service model. Tencent had excelled at this in China, and agreed to help Epic in exchange for significant ownership in Epic. Epic choose to use "Fortnite" as the spearhead for Epic's games-as-a-service model which created additional road bumps, according to Mustard. Further, with the transition of executives, new leadership was needed to take over for "Fortnite"s development team. Sugg, for example, had been discussing the various game systems in depth with Bleszinski, who otherwise was leading the design. With Bleszinski's departure, Sugg had to take over as lead design to try to continue the vision that Bleszinski's team had.
PoxNora
PoxNora: Battlefield of the Immortals is a multiplayer online game that combines a digital collectible card game with a turn-based strategy game in a fantasy setting. "PoxNora" was originally launched via Java Web Start through a browser and can be played on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The game is free to play with "Sample Battlegroups", and players can purchase additional game pieces, called "runes", and build their own strategies. The game currently includes more than 1600 runes. The game was originally designed and developed by Octopi Media Design Lab, which as of January 16, 2009 became owned by and operated by Sony Online Entertainment. This division of SOE was formerly referred to as SOETucson (because Octopi's headquarters was located in Tucson, Arizona). On April 1, 2011, SOE closed down the Tucson studio along with its Seattle and Denver studios, laying off over 200 employees in the process. Some members of the "PoxNora" team were moved to the San Diego HQ to continue development.
Clash Royale
"Clash Royale" is a tower rush video game which pits players in games featuring two or four players (1v1 or 2v2) in which the objective is to destroy the most amount of opposing towers, with the destruction of the "King's Tower" being an instantaneous win. After three minutes, if both of the players or both of the teams have an equal amount of crowns or none at all the match continues automatically onto "overtime" and the player who destroys an opposing tower wins instantaneously. After "overtime", a draw occurs. In a late 2018 update ditching the teammate in a 2v2 match multiple times caused the player to have a block that prevents him/her from playing 2v2 with random players for a certain amount of time.
Chaos Esports Club
Chaos Esports Club, previously known as Digital Chaos, is an American eSports organization founded in 2015, with teams based in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege", "", and "Fortnite Battle Royale". The organization is best known for their "Dota 2" team being a Cinderella story at The International 2016 tournament, where they finished as runners-up.
The Culling (video game)
"The Culling 2" was released on July 10, 2018 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game was criticized by players for appearing to be an unfinished title, its release timed to hit the middle of the popularity of battle royale games. Additionally, the release occurred on the same day as the start of a new season within "Fortnite: Battle Royale". Steam peak player counts for the game on its first day were around 250 players, and within 40 hours the game dropped to a single player.
Epic Games
Epic Games is known for games such as "ZZT" developed by founder Tim Sweeney, various shareware titles including "Jazz Jackrabbit" and "Epic Pinball", the "Unreal" video game series, which is used as a showcase for its Unreal Engine, the "Gears of War" series which is now owned by The Coalition and Microsoft Game Studios, "Infinity Blade", "Shadow Complex", "Bulletstorm", and "Fortnite".
Epic Games
Epic Games develops the Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers their internally developed video games, such as "Fortnite" and the "Unreal", "Gears of War" and "Infinity Blade" series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.
Fortnite
Currently, "Fortnite" is distributed as three different game modes, using the same engine and has similar graphics, art assets, and game mechanics.In the first two modes, players can use a pickaxe to knock down existing structures on the map to collect basic resources that are wood, brick, and metal. Subsequently, in all modes, the player can use these materials to build fortifications with, such as walls, floors, and stairs. Such fortification pieces can be edited to add things like windows or doors. The materials used have different durability properties and can be updated to stronger variants using more materials of the same type. Within "Save the World" this enables players to create defensive fortifications around an objective or trap-filled tunnels to lure husks through. In "Battle Royale", this provides the means to quickly traverse the map, protect oneself from enemy fire, or to delay an advancing foe. Players are encouraged to be very creative in designing their fortifications in "Creative".
Battlerite
Unlike traditional MOBA games, the goal of the game is not to destroy towers or other base structures. Additionally, players do not kill neutral units to gain resources, and therefore players cannot buy items or other resources in the game to augment their character's stats or abilities. This leads to an action-focused gameplay with in short matches compared to the longer strategy-focused games common in the genre.
Clash Royale
"Clash Royale" mainly received positive reviews, with "TouchArcade" Eli Hodapp calling it "absolutely phenomenal" in his five-star review. "Pocket Gamer" Harry Slater gave the game a score of 9/10, summing up "It's an incredible amount of rewarding fun, it's nail-biting at times, and there's content here that will keep you busy for weeks if not months." Writing for Geek.com, James Plafke criticized ""Clash Royale" for being genuinely fun—more so than "Clash of Clans"—while the developer chronically interrupts the player from enjoying it." "Clash Royale" has received a very positive response from its players, with an average score of 4.5 out of 5 on the Google Play Store and an average score of 4 out of 5 on the Apple App Store.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Part of the game's success is also considered to be related to its impact on social media. By March 2018, "Fortnite Battle Royale" became the most-viewed game on Twitch, exceeding the average-concurrent viewership numbers of "League of Legends" and "Battlegrounds". One notable streamer was Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who gained a large number of subscribers by March 2018, in part due to his skill and through promotions on Twitch that offered free "Fortnite Battle Royale" cosmetic items; by March 2018, he was estimated to be making a month from his streaming revenue. YouTube streamer Rubén Doblas Gundersen held a "Fortnite Battle Royale" match with 99 other well-known YouTube streamers in late March, which drew over 1.1 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched gaming YouTube streams. The "Fortnite" Pro-Am event held at E3 2018 was estimated to have drawn over 1.3 million views across Twitch and other streaming services, making it one of the highest-viewed live-streamed event to date.
A number of celebrities and athletes have said they play "Fortnite Battle Royale", such as Chance the Rapper, Joe Jonas, Finn Wolfhard, Roseanne Barr, and Norm Macdonald. For athletes, their appreciation for the game has taken on the form of recreating the various emotes in game as part of their on-field celebration dances. Such "Fortnite" celebrations were frequently throughout the 2018 FIFA World Cup event in June and July 2018, including by Antoine Griezmann after a scoring penalty kick during the final.
Fortnite Battle Royale
"Fortnite Battle Royale"s primary distinction from other battle royale games is the building system, which originated from the original "Fortnite" survival game. Nearly all objects in the environment can be destroyed and harvested for materials (wood, stone, and metal), which can then be used to build fortifications of limited durabilities, such as walls, ramps, floors, and roofs, which can be used to help traverse the map, protect the player from gunfire, or slow down progression of other players. Weaker pieces can be destroyed in a few hits, but can be built quickly, while stronger pieces can withstand more punishment, but take longer to build.
The game is free-to-play, supported by microtransactions that allow players to buy "Vinderbucks", "V-Bucks" for short, the game's internal currency. V-Bucks are also shared with the main "Fortnite: Save the World" game, which offers players the opportunity to earn V-Bucks by completing missions or daily quests. V-Bucks can then be used to buy cosmetic improvements to the player (character, pickaxe and glider skins, back-wear, and emotes). The game is run as seasons, lasting about 10 weeks each. Each season introduces an exclusive set of cosmetic items that can be obtained. These are offered through a dual-track battle pass, which features a number of tiers that players climb through by earning 'battle stars' through completing in-game objectives, while acquiring cosmetic rewards or other items in the process. Each player has access to the "free" track of the Battle Pass, which offers fewer cosmetics that can be earned by clearing multiple tiers, while players can also purchase the Pass' "premium" track with V-Bucks, which offers more challenges and grants prizes for every tier the player advances. Players can use V-Bucks to purchase tiers as well once they have bought the Battle Pass.
Tencent
These massively multiplayer online games include "Call of Duty Online", a massively multiplayer online game that consists of previous "Call of Duty" titles with added content;" Dungeon Fighter Online", a side-scrolling online beat 'em up game; "QQ Fantasy", a 2D online game that incorporates elements from Chinese mythology; "Xunxian", a 3D, online RPG; "QQ Sanguo", an online casual role playing game set during the historical three kingdoms period; "QQ Huaxia", an online RPG; "QQ Dancer", an online musical dancing game that offers QQ IM interactivity; "QQ Nanaimo", an online game set on a desert island where players maintain houses and pets; "QQ Speed", a casual online racing game; "QQ R2Beat", an online in-line skating game; "QQ Tang", an "advanced casual game" with gameplay derived from Chinese literature; "QQ PET", and a QQ IM-based desktop virtual pet game. Tencent also develop and publish mobile games such as the MOBA title "Honor of Kings" ("Arena of Valor"), fully own "League of Legends", and partly own battle royale games such as "Fortnite" and "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".
In 2017, 21 April, Tencent announced the rebranding of its Chinese 'Tencent game platform' as WeGame, which was launched in September 2017. Tencent has since announced plans to develop a Hong Kong edition of WeGame that can be used by players outside of China, potentially setting up the platform to compete with Valve Corporation's Steam platform.
Fortnite
Near the same time that Epic released "Fortnite" into early access, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" had become a worldwide phenomenon, having sold over 5 million copies three months from its March 2017 release, and drawing strong interest in the battle royale genre. Epic recognized that with the "Fortnite" base game, they could also do a battle royale mode, and rapidly developed their own version atop "Fortnite" in about two months. By September 2017, Epic was ready to release this as a second mode from "Save the World" in the paid-for earlier access, but then later decided to release it as a free game, "Fortnite Battle Royale", supported with microtransactions. This version quickly gained players, with over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release, and leading Epic to create separate teams to continue the "Fortnite Battle Royale" development apart from the "Save the World" mode, outside of common engine elements and art assets. This allowed "Fortnite Battle Royale" to expand to other platforms otherwise not supported by the "Save the World" mode, including iOS and Android mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
Realm Royale
Realm Royale is a free-to-play battle royale game developed by Hi-Rez Studios. The game features multiple character classes each with unique abilities. It is a spin-off of the hero shooter "Paladins", where it originated as a game mode known as Paladins: Battlegrounds. The game was released for Microsoft Windows via Steam's early access program in June 2018, with versions for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One released two months later.
Myth (streamer)
Ali Kabbani's YouTube account was created on November 3, 
2013. He started streaming on Twitch in 2016 and mainly streamed "Paragon," a third-person multiplayer online battle arena developed by Epic Games. Paragon has since been removed. His streams become much more popular when he started streaming "Fortnite Battle Royale" in the later half of 2017. At the end of January 2018, Kabbani had over 200,000 followers on Twitch and by the end of June of the same year the number had increased to over 3.2 million.
Fortnite: Save the World
By November 2013, Epic confirmed that "Fortnite" would not release that year, nor offered a target released date, though affirmed the game was still in development by several of its studios. Epic Games Vice President of Publishing Mike Fischer said in 2015 that Epic recognized that they "announced this game too soon", and that its lengthy development period was due to "very good reasons." "Fortnite" was a feature in the May 2014 issue of "Game Informer", revealing that the title would be released as a free-to-play game.
2017 in video gaming
Top-rated games in 2017 included "", "Super Mario Odyssey", "Persona 5", and "". One of the most influential games of 2017 was "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", which was released in early access for personal computers in March 2017 and by the end of the year had sold 30million units, breaking several concurrent player count records and established the battle royale genre. The highest-grossing game of the year was the mobile game "Honor of Kings", known as "Arena of Valor" internationally. Considerable debate was held over the use of loot boxes in video games and whether they constituted gambling, coming to a head with the release of "Star Wars Battlefront II".
Battle pass
Coupled with the success of battle passes and how they are complimented in "Fortnite" and the exhaustion over loot box controversies, other publishers started to evaluate battle pass use, with gaming journalists theorizing that games which formerly relied on loot boxes or worked as a service could begin to offer battle passes as a replacement.
Star Wars: Battlefront (2004 video game)
Campaign groups several battles together in a set order loosely based on the historical campaign of either the Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War. As "" had not been released at the time, the Clone Wars campaign ends with the Battle of Kashyyyk. Footage from the five films then released are used as cutscenes between battles. The player starts the campaign as either a member of the Separatist army or an Imperial Stormtrooper. Around halfway through the chosen campaign the perspective switches to the Clone Troopers or Rebels. To maintain continuity, missions prior to the battle of Geonosis pit the Separatists against native forces only, and for the first two missions the super battle droid is unavailable, replaced with a standard battle droid.
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.
Surviv.io
Ben Burns, writing for VG247, named the game the "third most popular battle royale title after Fortnite and PUBG".
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.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
"PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale" received reviews that were generally favorable. Critics praised the game's multiplayer and fighting mechanics, but criticized its lack of content, still images in campaign mode and few cut scenes. The use of super moves as the only way to defeat a player had mixed reception. While some critics thought it lacked depth, others believed that filling up the meter to land a knock-out added strategy to an otherwise only decent fighting experience. The game currently holds a 74 score for the PlayStation 3 version and a 75 score for the PS Vita version on Metacritic.
Battle royale game
"Business Insider" projected that battle royale games will bring in over during 2018, and will grow to in 2019. SuperData Research reported that, in 2018, the three top-grossing battle royale games ("Fortnite", "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4") generated nearly in combined digital revenue. Sensor Tower reported that, in 2018, the top three most-downloaded battle royale mobile games ("PUBG Mobile", "Garena Free Fire" and "Fortnite") received over 500million downloads combined.
Fortnite Battle Royale
Epic has partnered with the National Football League (NFL) to make character skins for each of the 32 teams in the League available to purchase for a limited time in November 2018, a result of the influence of "Fortnite" on NFL players, who have frequently performed "Fortnite" dance emotes as victory celebrations.
Nintendo Switch Online
Nintendo Switch Online is required to access online multiplayer on the majority of titles. Some free-to-start multiplayer games, such as "Fortnite Battle Royale" and "Warframe", are exempt from this requirement, and can be played online freely without a subscription.