Epic Games' Fortnite, a game long awaited by content creators and fans alike, finally released to early access this past summer. Earlier in the week, Epic Games announced that a new PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds inspired mode, called Fortnite: Battle Royale will release as free DLC on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 next week.
This development and announcement apparently aren't sitting well with the PUBG developer Bluehole (who have used Epic's Unreal Engine throughout the development of PUBG) who have issued an interesting press release.
"We have noticed that Epic Games references PUBG in the promotion of Fortnite to their community and in communications with the press...This was never discussed with us and we don't feel that it is right." Bluehole's Chang Han Kim said in the release. He continued; "We've had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG's development...After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known."
It seems that Bluehole is at issue with the entire prospect of this game mode, that it steals assets and ideas directly from PUBG, which doesn't paint Epic Games in the best light. In the announcement for Fortnite: Battle Royale, Epic's Donald Mustard said "At Epic, we're huge fans of the battle royale genre and games like PUBG and H1Z1." The blog post on the Battle Royale announcement page writes "We love Battle Royale games like PUBG and thought Fortnite would make a great foundation for our own version." It definitely seems a bit odd taking the exact game mode and style of gameplay from one game and directly naming that title during your promotion.
In contrast, before PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was released earlier this year, Brendan Greene was a consultant for H1Z1's Battle Royale mode and also spent time creating battle royale sim mods for ARMA.
Greene has been quoted as stating in the past "Other companies will, of course, enter the marketplace. But I would just hope they put their own spin on the game mode and not just make a carbon copy."
Only time and the eventual release of the game mode will tell if all of this perceived controversy is indeed accurate. You can catch the announcement trailer for Fortnite: Battle Royale below and come to your own conclusion fully when the game mode launches next week on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.