battleroyale
Latest
'Fortnite' comes to Nintendo Switch today
The rumors were true: Fortnite has arrived on the Nintendo Switch. As of 1PM Eastern, you can play Epic Games' battle royale shooter at home or on the move using the same console. It looks to be up to date, too, including newer Season 4 features like shopping carts. If you've been dying to play Fortnite away from home but want more than touchscreen controls, you just got your fix.
Get ready for a 'Cyanide & Happiness' battle royale game
Things are already pretty dark in the Cyanide & Happiness universe, but throw a post-rapture apocalypse into the mix and you've got straight-up carnage. That's the backdrop of Rapture Rejects, a top down isometric last-man-standing game set in the (crumbling) world of everyone's favourite bleak comic strip. It's essentially a mash-up of Battle Royale and Worms, with no boring military stuff and plenty of bizarre weapons, plus Cyanide & Happiness' imitable brand of OTT animated violence. And also Satan. You can sign up for alpha, which is happening this summer, now.
'PUBG' War Mode comes to Xbox One in winter 2018
PUBG's PC-based players have already moved beyond battle royale with War Mode, so when do Xbox One gamers get their turn? It won't be too long. PUBG Corp and Microsoft have confirmed that War Mode will reach the Xbox crowd in winter 2018. As before, it's really built for gamers who prefer immediate firefights over the long buildup of the core game -- players parachute into a relatively small circle at frequent intervals already prepared to fight.
Of course ‘Battlefield V’ is getting a battle royale mode
EA started off its EA Play show at E3 answering a question on everyone's lips: Will Battlefield V follow the shooter vogue and have its own battle royale mode? Yes, yes it will. While the game's leads introducing the feature offered no details, the franchise's Twitter account tweeted that it will have team play and vehicles. Time will tell if the game puts its own spin on the mode or is just trying to cash in on the zeitgeist, but at least it won't have loot boxes.
'Fortnite' gets its first vehicle: Shopping carts
For all of the things that Epic Games has delivered in its weekly Fortnite updates, vehicles have not been one of them. While both PUBG and H1Z1 already allow players to hop in a car and fast-travel across the map, Fortnite has relied on items such as Hop Rocks and Jetpacks to give gamers an advantage over their opponents. However, Epic Games isn't shy when it comes to testing out new ideas, so today it finally gave players their first taste of transportation in the form of 'shopping carts.
'PUBG' creators sue Epic Games over 'Fortnite' battle royale mode
The developers of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds haven't been shy about accusing Epic Games of riding their bandwagon with Fortnite, and now they're taking legal action. Bluehole's PUBG Corp has confirmed that it sued Epic in South Korea this January for allegedly violating the studio's copyright with Fortnite's Battle Royale mode, particularly its interface and in-game items. Epic has declined to comment, but it's safe to say the situation is... complicated.
'H1Z1' battle royale arrives fashionably late on PS4
The battle royale genre is certainly all the rage right now, but before Fortnite: Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Daybreak's H1Z1 was challenging players with its zombie survival sandbox. It's been a bumpy ride, however, after three years of early access H1Z1 has not only launched as a full-fledged game, it's also kicking off its PlayStation 4 open beta today.
'Fortnite' makes its Android debut this summer
You knew it was just a matter of time. Just weeks after Fortnite launched on iOS, Epic has confirmed that its battle royale title (and really, cultural phenomenon) is coming to Android sometime in the summer. There's not much more to say at this stage, but it's safe to presume iOS' touch-native interface will carry over. And crucially, it should reflect some lessons learned since the mobile game arrived to ruin people's productivity.
PUBG’s third map will open for all players to test this weekend
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been teasing its upcoming third map for a month now, and this weekend, players on PC will be able to test it out -- no invite required. The newly-named Sanhok (formed from the Thai word for 'fun' and the Tagalog word for 'chicken') features ruins and jungle inspired by areas in Southeast Asia. And like the game's unpopular second map Miramar, this one is a much smaller 4km x 4km -- just a quarter of the size of PUBG's original arena Erangel.
Pro gaming team signs 13-year-old ‘Fortnite’ player
Among the four members making up pro gaming organization Team Secret's new European Fortnite squad, one stood out: 13-year-old Kyle "Mongraal" Jackson. Almost immediately after the team was introduced today, news outlets jumped on Jackson's youth. Even if he may not hold the record (some say the then-12-year-old Jun "TY" Tae Yang was picked up to play StarCraft in 2006, noted Cybersport.com), the Fortnite ace is one of the youngest ever signed to pro team.
Battle royale pioneer 'H1Z1' comes to PS4 on May 22nd
PS4 players don't have many major choices for battle royale games: there's Fortnite, of course, but you won't find PUBG or up-and-coming games like Radical Heights. All that is about to change in a month, though, as Daybreak is releasing H1Z1 (the title that arguably started the battle royale trend) an open PS4 beta on May 22nd. It'll remain free-to-play with purchasable cosmetic items, but will pack new progression mechanics to keep things quick, including the pacing of the gas (the zone of death in battle royale titles) and airdrops.
Battle royale hybrid 'Darwin Project' is now free to play
It's tough to compete in the battle royale world, especially with Fortnite in the room. How do you convince players to try your game if they aren't immediately enraptured? Scavengers Studio knows how: give it away. The company has turned E3 darling The Darwin Project into a free-to-play title, with a new customization progression system coming on April 24th. Scavengers isn't shy about the reasoning, noting that a lack of players on some servers led to longer queues and trouble finding matches for the survival-themed brawler.
'H1Z1' Pro League's Vegas matches stream on Facebook this weekend
H1Z1's take on the battle royale genre may not be as popular as, say, Fortnite or PUBG, but it has something the other two don't: an eSports tournament in Vegas. On Saturday the 21st, 75 pro players from 15 well-known teams like Echo Fox, Cloud9 and Luminosity will try to survive to the bitter end at the Twin Galaxies eSports Center, which is located just off the strip within Caesars Entertainment Studios.
'Fortnite' is back online after a day-long blackout
The popular game Fortnite is finally playable across all platforms after a server outage and emergency update took it offline for almost a day. According to a Reddit post by a company employee, a "critical failure with one of [the] account service databases" made the login and matchmaking systems unstable. But for their trouble, Epic Games is giving players of both the game's battle royale and tower defense modes free in-game loot.
'Fortnite' update adds instant fort-building grenades
As Fortnite continues to pick up new players across various platforms, Epic Games has consistently deployed new updates to keep the game fresh and free from game-breaking bugs. Earlier this week, we saw the team introduce new space-themed skins, complete with NASA-like space shuttle gliders, but we've had to wait until today to see some of the new in-game items. The most notable inclusion is the Port-A-Fort, a new epic drop that will instantly deploy a three-story fort made from metal.
'Radical Heights' is Cliff Bleszinski's free-to-play battle royale game
That didn't take long. After announcing that LawBreakers wasn't living up to expectations (and making enough money), and teasing a new project on Friday, developer Boss Key has revealed the "passion project" it teased. Try to feign surprise when you find out that it's a free-to-play battle royale game. On the surface, Radical Heights stands out from the crowd with a vibrant, quasi cel-shaded, retro-futuristic game-show vibe that hearkens back to the '80s. Meaning, there are a lot of extreme pastels and hot pink triangles complementing its over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon tone.
‘Fortnite’ wants to put your dance in the game
The free-to-play Fortnite: Battle Royale has become a cultural sensation with a wide-ranging playerbase. How do we know? Because professional sports players won't stop mimicking the game's weird dances in real life. Maybe one day they'll be doing one of your dances -- because Epic Games just launched a contest for players to submit video of their smooth moves, with the best one making it into Fortnite.
‘PUBG’ arrives on mobile in the US
Two weeks ago, Epic announced that its super popular Battle Royale mode for Fortnite will be coming to phones and tablets. While players debated how using touchscreens could ever be competitive against mouse-and-keyboard players, the game that made the genre a household name snuck up and dropped its own mobile version in the US. Right now, American players can download PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for iOS or Android -- and both versions are free to play.
'Fortnite Battle Royale' is coming to phones and tablets soon
Fortnite has rapidly gained ground on the battle royale-style champ, PUBG, and now Epic Games has announced it will launch a mobile version on iOS and Android. Amazingly, it's supposed to be the same 100-player PvP game we've seen on other platforms, and there's even a promise to support cross-play and cross-progression with the PC and PS4 versions. Unfortunately, the Android version is coming "in the next few months," but sign-ups to play on iOS will open Monday with invites to play rolling out soon after. Minimum compatible iOS devices include iPhone 6S/SE, iPad Mini 4, iPad Pro, iPad Air 2 and iPad 2017 running iOS 11.
‘PUBG’ rival ‘Fortnite’ adds 50 v. 50 team deathmatch
Fortnite: Battle Royale may have caught some flak from the makers of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but that didn't stop it from becoming an instant hit. To build on that success (and steal some of PUBG's thunder, ahead of its arrival on Xbox One), the free-to-play title is adding an insane new game mode. Instead of a 100 player free-for-all, it will be two squads of 50 scrapping it out till one team is left standing. The free mode is available until December 17th on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac.
