Have you ever asked yourself what is the next most popular Battle Royale video game? Or better yet, will there be any addition to the Battle Royale genre after Apex Legends? It is crazy unbelievable how some of them managed to achieve something, others failed, and a multitude of unfinished projects is on the way.
It all began with H1Z1, in which Brendan Greene’s input was put to a minimum, but also contributed the game to stand off out of others. After that, he got an offer from Bluehole to become a creative director of their next project, which was a Battle Royale video game. Then, PUBG was born. A game that noticed a huge success and insanely high player base.
Maintaining a healthy player base was not a problem at all, as PUBG managed to be the first video game to have more than 1 million players for a whole year, straight.
A couple of months after PUBG launched, Fortnite appeared as a second serious tackler of the Battle Royale genre. Contrarily to PUBG, Fortnite probably showcased the most unique mechanic found in a video game, and that is the possibility to build forts in real time. This allowed players to defend themselves easier, rather than just taking cover behind a solid object.
Those two were allegedly two most popular Battle Royale video games for a while before everyone noticed the Battle Royale success and started working on a new project of the same genre. After that, Activision announced their tackle down on the Battle Royale genre with their Black Ops 4. Named Blackout, Activision released the first Battle Royale mode in its rows, which also attracted a lot of player focus.
Sadly, Blackout’s mainstream did not last long enough, as players were divided between 3 Battle Royale games, PUBG and Fortnite, excluding H1Z1… Another determining factor for Blackout’s failure was the paywall, which compared to PUBG and Fortnite was expensive.
Electronic Arts also announced Firestorm, the Battle Royale game mode for Battlefield V which never came to life. However, a studio in EA’s property, Respawn Entertainment managed to develop a brand new Battle Royale game set in the Titanfall 2 era, Apex Legends. Apex Legends noticed a lot of hype and devotion by its fans. Just a couple of days after launch the game managed to bolster the view count on Twitch but also enlarge its player base.
Apex Legends includes unique gameplay in its own perspective. There are multiple factors to this, such as each legend have different abilities. As noted in our Apex Legends review, The game arguably fast and it runs very smooth, despite the fact that it is still unoptimized. Being this early may take some time until full optimization is met.
Currently, we can all agree there are 3 Battle Royale video games that are quite popular. Those are, Fortnite, PUBG, and most recently, Apex Legends. Blackout has fallen behind and it’s been stated it could include a free-to-play model and monetize from microtransactions only.
No wonder why free-to-play games are the way to go nowadays. Having only Microtransactions is more than enough to monetize and keep the game alive with content.
What is next? After Electronic Arts recent success, Apex Legends, are we going to see Firestorm being finally developed? It should’ve been released early 2019, but no Firestorm is found in Battlefield V yet. Nevertheless, the most popular Battle Royale experience is being held by the top three at this moment and we hardly see anyone else achieving these heights.
