Epic Games' "Fortnite," which is still in its early release, will be unveiling a brand new mode called Battle Royale, which is very similar to the mechanics of the widely popular "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds." Bluehole, the studio that created the popular first person shooter is not happy about it and is considering further action.
"Fortnite: Battle Royale," like "Battlegrounds," drops dozens of players into a giant map where they have to kill all other players in order to be declared the winner.
Bluehole's creative director, PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene has shared his thoughts about other games of the same genre. "Other companies will of course enter the marketplace," he said during a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything. "But I would just hope they put their own spin on the game-mode and not just make a carbon copy!"
The main problem, it seems, is because of the relationship between the studio and the Fortnite's developer, Epic Games. Epic Games is also responsible for the Unreal Engine, the engine which powers "Battlegrounds."
According to Bluehole vice president and executive producer, Changhan Kim, it is not about the game mode itself but the fact that it was Epic Games that released such a game. Kim clarified said that they are "not claiming any kind of ownership" over the battle royale game mode.
"There are a lot of different issues but everyone else that released a battle royale game mode made their own thing," Kim explained in a report from PC Gamer. "But it was Epic Games that made this game that is similar to us that has similar elements, and that's the concern, that it was Epic Games."
The executive said that Bluehole is paying a large amount of royalties to Epic games for using the Unreal Engine. These royalties are based on the game's success. "Epic Games always promoted their licensing models [saying] 'We want to support the success indie developers,'" Kim added. He said Bluehole is an indie developer, and that is part of the problem that they are seeing.
