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The Main Reasons for Battle Royale Games Success

Starting off in 2017, a contagious game subgenre commonly referred to as Battle Royale became popular as PUBG and Fortnite made their appearance on the gaming scene. Since then the battle royale trend has gained much global traction among gamers, with millions of concurrent players engaged in fights to the death. This trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by game developers and publishers. The number of new games featuring a battle royale gameplay option is exponentially increasing.

In June 2018 at E3 both industry leaders and budding dev teams showcased lots of standalone projects that utilize a battle royale approach. USA TODAY drew attention to how many game makers at the event were eager to follow the success of the genre ’s trailblazers.

Not to trail far behind, many companies started jumping onto the battle royale bandwagon by implementing BR-based add-ons and DLCs in their previously released installments. Why is it so?

30.1% of PC gamers played battle royale games as at the start of 2018

battle royale games comparison

Battle Royale: the Rationale behind the Success

AAA game developers have always tapped into popular trends resonating with core gamers in order to attract, engage and retain players, therefore maximizing their profits. And it is battle royale this time around that seems to perfectly meet the industry’s goals and become a new game-changer (pun intended). Let’s take a closer look at this genre.

Battle Royale has succeeded by deftly forging the most catching elements of the last-man-standing and survival game genres. Players equipped with minimal weapons and ammo seek new items and fight opponents while trying to stick to the continuously decreasing safe zone. There has to be only one winner to outlast the rest. The name stems from the title of a Japanese blockbuster where the same setting took place.  

 battle royale audience by countries Battle royale titles are by and large online multiplayer games, with lots of players from all over the world simultaneously involved in a lethal challenge. As a rule, a death match is initiated on a large-scale map and welcomes as many participants as game servers’ throughput can afford. As time goes on, the playable area reduces in size, thus forcing gamers to move their characters closer to the center. More distant locations are usually much safer to begin with, but are short of weapons and other necessary resources. The nearer you are to the central area, the more valuable items you can pick up. However, the number of contenders in this zone is thus higher.

Players who fail to get to the safe range on time lose their chance to win the match. Depending on the exact game playthrough rules, the winner is either the last man or team that manages to overwhelm all opponents. Winners are usually rewarded with in-game items, which they can further trade on the market.

Battle Royale Perspective: What to Expect Next

Odds are, the future for battle royale games is vibrant in 2018 and later. With lots of new game makers taking on the genre, PC seems set to remain the bailiwick for battle royale enabled franchises. Moreover, it is anticipated to sprout up in many other ways, primarily across new markets as well as other gaming platforms. We’ve delved into recent research papers on 2018 gaming trends to come up with several major takeaways.

140.5 million is total viewership hours of PUBG and Fortinte on Twitch and YouTube Gaming as of February 2018

total viewership of Fortnite vs PUBG

All in all, these can be boiled down to the following:

  • Due to easy adoption of battle royale algorithms, current games will largely have an additional mode integrated to catch up with such trendsetters like PUBG and Fortnite.
  • The battle royale format will become a mainstay for eSports and live streaming activities with championships being broadcast via the most popular channels like Twitch and YouTube.
  • With regional and cultural locales in mind, BR-driven titles will have every chance to expand their footprint on the pan-Asian and, particularly, Japanese markets. NB: Robust localization is key to gain market share.
  • Battle Royale will go mobile. Smartphones show immense potential for this genre’s growth and the future success of popular games is inextricably paired with their campaigns of implementing actionable ports on Android and iOS devices.
  • Consoles are highly likely to seize competitive advantage from PC versions. Modern consoles are full-fledged platforms that enable smooth running of even the most resource-intensive games with hi-res graphics and animation, bar none.     

With the battle royale trend still enjoying its dream run, many franchises will doubtlessly seek to stay ahead of the gaming curve, while others may well fizzle out. Either way, gamers will be the ones to judge which titles become truly legendary, while Fortnite and PUBG are on top of almost all gaming lists

Stay tuned for our blog reviews to get the latest insights on gaming industry trends, and don’t forget to join us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Tonhy Johns
Tonhy Johns is an enthusiastic copywriting professional with over 5 years of expertise. Being a digital tech and video game industry evangelist, he is passionate about creating eye-catching yet meaningful web content on various topics such as gaming, fintech, eCommerce, IoT, AI, ML, VR & AR, just to name a few.
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