Battle Royale games have become really popular over the past couple of months, and when playing the game one can understand why. If you don’t know what Battle Royale games are, they are games in which the player spawn on an island with anywhere from 100-200 players, with slight variation of that from game to game. After spawning you all are teleported inside a plane, or bus, or something you can jump out of. You then either fall from the sky or jump out and fall where you want to and try to find a good place to get some loot (weapons, clothes, provisions, etc).

After time, people will start to whittle down due to intense firefights and other ways of eliminating players. Usually roughly 5 minutes post drop in, the zone starts. The zone is an area on the map where you are allowed to be, if you are outside of it you will take damage until you are either in the zone or you die. As the game goes on, the zone keeps getting smaller and smaller forcing players into a smaller and smaller area, which inevitably leads to more gunfights and less players. After killing an enemy, it is encouraged to go where they were defeated and “loot” them, taking all of their gear that is of equal level or better than what you already have. Because of this “looting”, by the end of the game when the zone is small and there are about 10 players left, most everyone is geared up to the teeth. Players continue to battle it out with all of their acquired loot until there is one person or one team left standing.

On February 18, 2016, an already popular zombie survival game named H1Z1, had an added gamemode which opened the gate for Battle Royale games. H1Z1: King of the Hill was an instant success because of the new Hunger Games style gameplay. This is what led to the Battle Royale games out currently, but another honorable mention to the Battle Royale genre is the Minecraft: Hunger Games gamemode, and more similar to H1Z1, ARMA: 3, which has a Battle Royale game mode as well, and came out before H1Z1, but didn’t gain as much popularity. Companies tried to mimic H1Z1, but the only one to outdo H1Z1 in popularity is Player Unknown: Battlegrounds (PUBG).

PUBG came out on March 23, 2017, and quickly became the most popular Battle Royale, due to the slightly more realistic characteristics. Oakdale Junior Tyler Tormo says, “The physics in this game make sense. I really like how it’s teamwork oriented”.

About 6 months later, a brand new title was released. Fortnite was going to be solely a zombie survival, resource management, building game, but last minute, Fortnite announced a free to play Battle Royale mode. This made it instantly more popular because it was the first free to play Battle Royale (with the exception of mods on other games), and it was coming to console as well. Fortnite has some special qualities which sets it apart from other games. It has an arcade-like art style, and brought in a brand new mechanic, building. The fact that quite literally everything is destructible and you can build walls and ramps, change the pace and style of the game entirely and was welcomed with open arms by the players. Oakdale Junior Nick Kelly says, “Building allows you to defend yourself and get to the enemy in different ways during a fight, which gives you the option to choose your own pace”.

All the popular Battle Royale games were on PC, and could be downloaded on the gaming platform Steam, and other platforms like the Epic Games launcher. But Fortnite was first to come to both Xbox One and PS4, followed closely by PUBG’s arrival to Xbox one.