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Abattle royale game is anonlinemultiplayervideo game genre that blendslast-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration, and scavenging elements of asurvival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
The name for the genre is taken from the 2000 Japanese filmBattle Royale, itself based on thenovel of the same name, which presents asimilar theme of a last-man-standing competition in a shrinking play zone. The genre's origins arose frommods for large-scale online survival games likeMinecraft andArma 2 in the early 2010s. By the end of the decade, the genre became a cultural phenomenon, with standalone games such asPUBG: Battlegrounds (2017),Fortnite Battle Royale (2017),Apex Legends (2019) andCall of Duty: Warzone (2020) each having received tens of millions of players within months of their releases.
Battle royale games are played between many individual players, pairs of players, or a number of small squads (typically of 3-5 players). In each match, the goal is to be thelast player or team standing by eliminating all other opponents. A match starts by placing the player-characters into a large map space, typically by having all players skydive from a large aircraft within a brief time limit. The map may have random distribution or allow players to have some control of where they start. All players start with minimal equipment, giving no player an implicit advantage at the onset. Equipment, usually used for combat, survival or transport is randomly scattered around the map, often at landmarks on the map, such as within buildings inghost towns. Players need to search the map for these items while avoiding being killed by other players, who often cannot be visually marked or distinguishable either on-screen or on the map. Equipment from eliminated players can usually be looted as well. These games often include some mechanic to push opponents closer together as the game progresses, usually taking the form of a gradually shrinking safe zone, with players outside the zone facing elimination.
Typically, battle royale contestants are only given onelife, and any players who die are rarely allowed torespawn. Games with team support may allow players to enter a temporary near-death state once health is depleted, giving allies the opportunity torevive them before they are eliminated. The match is over when only one player or team remains, and the game typically provides some type of reward, such asin-game currency used for cosmetic items, to all players based on how long they survived. The random nature of starting point, item placement, and safe area reduction enables the battle royale genre to challenge players to think and react quickly and improve strategies throughout the match as to be the last man/team standing. In addition to standalone games, the battle royale concept may also be present as part of one of many game modes within a larger game, or may be applied as a user-createdmod created for another game.[1]
Formulative elements of the battle royale genre had existed prior to the 2010s. Gameplay modes featuringlast man standing rules have been a frequent staple of multiplayer online action games as early as 1990'sBomberman.[2] The elements ofscavenging and surviving on a large open-world map were popularized throughsurvival games.[3][4]
The 2000Japanese filmBattle Royale, along withKoushun Takami's earlier1999 novel of the same name and its2000 manga adaptation, set out the basic rules of the genre, including players being forced to kill each other until there is a single survivor, the gameplay taking place on a shrinking map, and the need to scavenge for weapons and items.[5] It soon inspired a wave of battle royale-themed Japanesemanga andanime, such asGantz (2000),Future Diary (2006), andBtooom! (2009).[6] Fictional battle royale video games were depicted inBtooom!,[7] and in the Phantom Bullet (Gun Gale Online) arc of thelight novel seriesSword Art Online (2010 in print) as the "Bullet of Bullets" tournament.[8]
Initial attempts at adapting theBattle Royale formula into video games came in the form of Japanesevisual novel games that focused on storytelling and puzzle-solving, such asHigurashi: When They Cry (2002),Zero Escape (2009) andDanganronpa (2010). However, these visual novel games are distinct from the genre which became known as battle royale games, which emerged when Western developers later adapted theBattle Royale formula into ashooter game format.[6]
Shortly after the release of the 2012 filmThe Hunger Games, which had a similar premise toBattle Royale, a server plug-in named Hunger Games (later changed to Survival Games) was developed forMinecraft.[9][10] Survival Games takes inspiration from the film, initially placing players at the center of the map near a set of equipment chests. When the game commences, players can compete over the central resources or spread out to find items stored in chests scattered around the play area. Players killed are eliminated and the last surviving player wins the match.[11]
InDayZ, amod forArma 2 released in August 2012, players struggle alongside or against each other to obtain basic necessities to continue living in a persistentsandbox filled with various dangers. The mod was designed to includeplayer versus player encounters, but generally these events were infrequent due to the size of the game's map and the persistence of the game world.[12] This led to the development of game mods that sacrificedDayZ open-endedness in favor of focusing on more frequent hostile interactions between players to determine an eventual winner.
The most influential battle royale mod was created by Brendan Greene, known by his online alias "PlayerUnknown", whose Battle Royale mod ofDayZ first released in 2013. This mod was directly inspired byBattle Royale,[13] and introduces concepts from the film such as a shrinking play zone that forces players into closer proximity as the game progresses.[5] In contrast toHunger Games-inspired mods, Greene's mod included weapons that were randomly scattered around the map. Greene recreated this mod forArma 3 in 2014, and continued to use his format as a consultant forH1Z1: King of the Kill.[citation needed] He later became the creative developer atBluehole of a standalone game representing his vision of the battle royale genre, which would later be released asPUBG: Battlegrounds.
Games from other developers took inspiration from highly played battle royale-style mods, as well as the popularity ofThe Hunger Games film series.Ark: Survival Evolved byStudio Wildcard introduced its "Survival of the Fittest" mode in July 2015, which was geared to be used foresports tournaments. The mode was temporarily broken off as its own free-to-play game during 2016 before the developers opted to merge it back into the main game for ease of the overall game's maintenance.[14][15]
In 2016, a battle royalemobile game based on the 2009 mangaBtooom,Btooom Online, was developed and released in Japan.[7] Despite some initial success on theJapanese mobile charts,Btooom Online was ultimately acommercial failure in Japan.[16]
While formative elements of the battle royale genre had been established before 2017, the genre grew from two principal titles through 2017 and 2018:PUBG: Battlegrounds andFortnite Battle Royale. Both games drew tens of millions of players in short periods of time, making them commercial successes and leading to future growth in the genre.H1Z1: King of the Kill, which predated those two titles, had regularly been one of the most played games on the computer gaming platformSteam by the start of 2017, but was not able to maintain its player base.[17][18][19][20]
WhilePUBG: Battlegrounds was not the first battle royale game, its release toearly access in March 2017 drew a great deal of attention, selling over twenty million copies by the end of the year,[21][22] and is considered the defining game of the genre.[4][23] In September 2017, the game broke the previous record for highest number of concurrent players on Steam, with over 1.3 million users playing the game simultaneously.[24]Battlegrounds' explosive growth and its establishment of the battle royale genre was considered one of the top trends in the video game industry in 2017.[25][26] Numerous games that copied the fundamental gameplay ofBattlegrounds appeared inChina shortly afterBattlegrounds' release.[27]
Epic Games had releasedFortnite, a cooperative survival game, into early access near the release ofBattlegrounds. Epic saw the potential to create their own battle royale mode, and by September 2017 they had released the free-to-playFortnite Battle Royale which combined some of the survival elements and mechanics from the mainFortnite game with the battle royale gameplay concept.[28][29] The game saw similar player counts asBattlegrounds, with twenty million unique players reported by Epic Games by November 2017.[30] Bluehole expressed concern at this move, not due toFortnite Battle Royale being a clone ofBattlegrounds but because they had been working with Epic Games for technical support of theUnreal Engine inBattlegrounds, and thus were worried thatFortnite may be able to include planned features to their battle royale mode before Bluehole could release them inBattlegrounds.[12][31][27]Battlegrounds' developer,PUBG Corporation, filed alawsuit against Epic Games in South Korea in January 2018 claimingFortnite Battle Royale infringements onBattlegrounds'copyrights.[32][33] Market observers predicted that there would be little likelihood of Bluehole winning the case, as it would be difficult to establish the originality ofPUBG in court due to itself being derived fromBattle Royale.[34] By the end of June 2018, the lawsuit had been closed by PUBG for undisclosed reasons.[35]
In 2018,Fortnite Battle Royale rivaledBattlegrounds in player numbers[36] and surpassed it in revenue,[37] which was attributed to itsfree-to-play business model andcross-platform support as well as its accessibility tocasual players.[38][39]Battlegrounds creator Brendan Greene credited it with further growing the battle royale genre.[38] Its mainstream publicity further increased following a stream byTyler "Ninja" Blevins withDrake,JuJu Smith-Schuster andTravis Scott,[40] which set aTwitch record for concurrent viewership.[41][42] The game accumulated a total player base of 45 million in January and 3.4 million concurrent players in February.Polygon labeled it "the biggest game of 2018" and "a genuine cultural phenomenon",[43] with "everyone from NFL players to famous actors" playing it,[39] includingRed Sox playerXander Bogaerts andBayern Munich's youth team borrowing celebrations from the game.[44] InAsia, however,PUBG remained the most popular battle royale game.[45]
Other popular battle royale games released in 2017 include twoNetEase titles,Rules of Survival and themobile game KnivesOut, as well as theGarena mobile gameFree Fire, which had over 150 Million daily active players as of 2021.[46] All of these games had received hundreds of millions of downloads, mostly in Asia, by 2018.[47][48][49]
With the success ofBattlegrounds andFortnite, the battle royale genre expanded greatly.[50] Major publishers, includingElectronic Arts[51]Activision,[52] andUbisoft[53] acknowledged the impact of the growing genre on their future plans and on the industry as a whole. Activision'sCall of Duty series included a battle royale mode titled Blackout in its 2018 installment,Call of Duty: Black Ops 4,[54] as did EA'sBattlefield V.[55] Other established games added battle royale-inspired game modes in updates, such asGrand Theft Auto Online,[56]Paladins,[57]Dota 2,[58]Battlerite,[59] andCounter-Strike: Global Offensive.[60] In February 2019, EA released the free-to-playApex Legends, which exceeded 50 million player accounts within a month.[61] The second main battle royale installment in theCall of Duty franchise, titledCall of Duty: Warzone, was released in March 2020 as a part of theCall of Duty: Modern Warfare video game but did not require purchase of it.[62] The game reached more than 50 million players in its first month of release.[63]
Battle royale mechanics have also been used in games from genres not normally associated with shooter games. In the 2019Nintendo Switch gameTetris 99, 99 players simultaneously compete in a game ofTetris. Players can direct "attacks" on other players for each line they complete and attempt to remain the last player standing.[64]Tetris 99 served as a template for the Switch gamesSuper Mario Bros. 35,Pac-Man 99,[65] andF-Zero 99.Blizzard Entertainment added a battle royale-inspired "Battlegrounds" mode to its digital card gameHearthstone, where eight players vie to win over the others through several rounds ofdrafting new cards and fighting in one-on-one events.[66] The racing gameForza Horizon 4 fromPlayground Games added a battle royale mode called "The Eliminator" where players all start with the same car, but can gain upgrades by beating other players and discovering "drops" around the map;[67] Microsoft stated in 2021 that it was the most popular multiplayer mode in the game.[68]Babble Royale is a game developed byFrank Lantz that usesScrabble as a basis for a word-based battle royale game.[69]
As of December 2019[update], dozens of battle royale games had debuted, but as with themultiplayer online battle arena genre, only two or three titles maintained widespread popularity at the same time. Other games and battle royale modes had briefly become popular before their concurrent player count dropped and players returned toFortnite orBattlegrounds;Apex Legends was the year's only new successful battle royale game.[50] In contrast to other multiplayer-only games, the large number of players typically involved in a single battle royale match generally requires a substantial concurrent player base in order to fill matchmaking lobbies in a reasonable amount of time. Xaviant Studios'The Culling was released in early access in 2016 and designed to be astreaming-friendly battle royale mode for 16 players.[70] However, following the release ofBattlegrounds,The Culling lost much of its player base, and Xaviant announced they were ending further development on it only a few months after releasing the full version of the game.[71]Radical Heights byBoss Key Productions was launched in April 2018 but within two weeks had lost 80% of its player base.[72]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 announce the game's closure by November 2018.[73] While several major battle royale announcements occurred atE3 in 2018, onlyFallout 76's battle royale mode appeared at the trade show in 2019.[50]
In October 2017, theChinese government stated through its Audio and Video and Numeral Publishing Association that it will discourage its citizens from playing battle royale games as they considered the games too violent, which "deviates from the values ofsocialism and is deemed harmful to young consumers", as translated byBloomberg.[74] WesternGaming publications speculated that the government's stance would make it difficult or impossible to publish battle royale within the country.[75] In November 2017, PUBG Corporation announced a partnership withTencent to publishBattlegrounds in China, making some changes in the game to "make sure they accord with socialist core values, Chinese traditional culture and moral rules" to satisfy Chinese regulations and censors.[76][77][78] However, during mid-2018, theChinese government revamped how it reviewed and classified games that were to be published in China, and by December 2018, after the formation of the new Online Ethics Review Committee, several battle royale titles includingFortnite andPUBG were listed as prohibited.[79] While PUBG Corporation was working with Tencent on a Chinese release, manyclones ofBattlegrounds were released in China.[80]
The rapid growth and success of the battle royale genre has been attributed to several factors, including the way all players start in the same vulnerable state and eliminating any intrinsic advantage for players, and being well-suited for being a spectator esport.[81] Other factors including specific games' business models, such asFortnite Battle Royale being free and available across computers, consoles, and mobile devices.[82] AUniversity of Utah professor also considers that battle royale games realize elements ofMaslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a scheme to describe human motivation, more-so than video games have in the past. While the lowest tiers of Maslow's hierarchy, physiological and safety, are met by the survival elements of battle royales, the love/belonging and esteem tiers are a result of the battle royale being necessarily a social and competitive game, and the final tier of self-actualization comes from becoming skilled in the game to win frequently.[81]
Business Insider projected that battle royale games would bring in over$2 billion during 2018 alone, and would generate a total of$20 billion by the end of 2019.[83]SuperData Research reported that,in 2018, the three top-grossing battle royale games (Fortnite,PUBG andCall of Duty: Black Ops 4) generated nearly$4 billion in combined digital revenue that year.[84] SuperData Research reported that the top four highest-grossing battle royalegames of 2020 (PUBG Mobile,Garena Free Fire,Call of Duty: Warzone andFortnite) generated more than$7 billion worldwide in combined digital revenue that year.[85]Fortnite grossed over$9 billion worldwide by 2019,[86] whilePUBG Mobile grossed over$8 billion by early 2022.[87]
Sensor Tower reported that 2018's top threemost-downloaded mobile battle royale games (PUBG Mobile,Garena Free Fire andFortnite) received over 500 million downloads combined that year.[49] As of 2020[update], the most-played battle royale games includePUBG Mobile with 600 million players,[88]Fortnite with 350 million players,[89]NetEase's mobile gameKnives Out with over 250 million players,[48]Rules of Survival with 230 million players,[47] andGarena Free Fire with over 180 million players.[49]
Turtle Beach Corporation, a manufacturer of headphones and microphones for gaming, reported an increase of over 200% in net revenues for the second quarter of 2018 over the same quarter in 2017, which they attributed to the popularity of the battle royale genre.[90]
In a 2022 study conducted on Japanese students who regularly play online games, battle royale gameplay was shown to have statistically significant correlations withgaming addiction and a sense of underachievement. The study also suggested that the battle royale genre requires more attention than other esports genres, particularly in terms of its link with aggressive feelings.[91]
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