You’ve probably heard about the very successful game Fortnite Battle Royale. This game belongs to the battle royale genre – an online multiplayer game where dozens of players fight for survival against each other. Each player usually starts the game with no weapons/equipment and needs to scavenge for items in a very large area that is constantly shrinking.
The battle royale genre actually got its name from a Japanese film that was released back in the year 2000. In this Battle Royale film that drew a lot of controversy, the Japanese government forces a group of students to kill each other in the annual “Battle Royale” act.
Fortnite Battle Royale
As of this writing, the most popular game in this genre is Fortnite. Just so you grasp how popular it is – by March 2019, Fortnite had generated over 2 billion dollars and had been played by over 250 million people!
Here is a short video showing some Fortnite gameplay:
Fortnite is an online multiplayer free to play battle royale game. This game can be played solo or with friends in a groups of 2/3. In each round, 100 players dive into a big island and begin to scavenge for items, weapons and other gear in a fight for survival. The winner is the last man or group that remains alive.
All the players must remain in the safe zone that keeps shrinking over time. Players that are caught outside this zone will take damage and if they won’t find their way into the safe zone they will quickly get killed.
The game was developed by Epic Games which is a software and video game development company that is based in North Carolina. If you didn’t play Fortnite (or another similar game), then you can try the game for free in this link: Fortnite Battle Royale – Epic Games.
There are many reasons that make this game fun and addicting. It’s a free online multiplayer game that gathers around 100 players in an entertaining fight to the dead. There are so many funny and interesting moments when you meet other players on the island.
When 3 or more players start fighting each other – it becomes total chaos and you aren’t sure if you should hide or choose one target in this chaos. If you decide to pick a target – who is it going to be? You can expect lots of cool moments in such events. The scavenging part is also fun. What loot are we going to find? Is it going to be weapons? or maybe healing items, ammunition or other items?
Another feature that Fortnite Battle Royale has is the ability to build and deconstruct objects around you. Players can gather resources like metal, brick and wood and use it to construct structure that will provide you with cover, reach higher places and access new paths.
If you have played FPS (first-person shooter) games before, you will probably find this game very comfortable. It’s true that Fortnite is a third person shooter and not FPS game, but the aiming mechanism is very similar to other FPS games.
Fortnite Addiction
This game is so addicting that it causes young children to stay up through the night. Many of these kids become violent if their parents try to limit play time (good luck with that :)). Just so you realize the severity of this phenomenon, here is just a small taste of what parents have to endure these days:
This phenomenon is actually quite disturbing. Whose responsibility is it to take care of these young kids that get addicted to Fortnite. Is it the parents fault? Can we really blame the Epic Games company for developing a game that is so fun that our kids want to play it all day long?
Here is an article on The Sun that discusses the issue: Fortnite gaming crisis sees children becoming hooked and turning violent when parents intervene. In this article they mention a 9 year old girl became so hooked on Fortnite that she wet herself and even used violence against her father when he tried to stop her from playing.
This issue is no joke and our society needs to have a serious discussion about the issue and the ways that we can minimize the risks that face our children.
Other Battle Royale Games
Other popular games are Apex Legends and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (which is also known as PUBG). Obviously, there are many other games in this genre that we aren’t going to mention here. These 2 games don’t have construction elements that can be found in Fortnite.
Unlike Fortnite, Apex Legends is a first person shooter game. In Apex Legends, player can choose from 8 different types of characters that have different abilities. You can also pick up customizations and attachments for your weapons (unlike Fortnite). This game is also more team-based because players are divided to squads of three (so it means that you can’t just play solo like you can in Fortnite) – so you will need to cooperate with 2 other players that you may or may not even know.
You can try the game for free in this link: Play Apex Legends
On the other hand, PUBG is a more realistic war-like game. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds does offer multiple maps of various size to play at – unlike Fornite, for example. An important difference between PUBG and the other 2 games is that PUBG isn’t free (even though it has a free mobile version). I have to admit that I didn’t love it as much as Fortnite and Apex Legends, so I would advise you to try the latter two games first.