In the exploding battle royale genre space PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite are rivals just as much as Call of Duty and Battlefield are in the first-person shooter space. But making the stakes of rivalry even greater is the fact that the two games are arguably the biggest in the industry right now. That said, increasingly Fortnite is racing off as the victor, while PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is having to settle for second in the genre it popularized before the former even have a battle royale mode.

But this development hasn't stopped PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds creator Brendan Greene from praising his competitor during a GDC panel this week.

“It’s great that the battle royale space is expanding and Fortnite is getting the battle royale game mode in the hands of a lot more people,” said Greene.

The above quote didn't just natural occur and come out of Green's mouth however. It was prompted by an audience member who brought up how Fortnite copied PUBG's design and premise, but has since exploded beyond PUBG, largely thanks to its free-to-play mode. But to Greene, this just "grows the genre."

This new, more positive outlook by Greene notably comes off the back of PUBG developer PUBG Corporation last year taking shots at Epic Games for the implementation of a battle royale mod into Fortnite, raising the concern that the mode seemed to be mimic PUBG in unsavory ways. Since then, the issue between the two companies has been quiet at best, and not good at worst. What doesn't help the matter is the fact the two are partners sense PUBG runs on Epic's Unreal Engine 4.

Still, talking about Fortnite, Greene joked that unlike the genre, developers don't need to compete to death.

“I really try to combat that perception that I want other people’s games to die,” said Greene, who noted that his own game was accused of killing off H1Z1, which had a similar effect on Arma 3, all games Green can trace his development lineage through, and all games that have defined the growing genre.

“I’m just happy that more and more people are getting to see these games,” said Greene.

Posted: Mar 23, 2018 11:37 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/03/23/pubg-creator-praises-fortnite-growing-battle-royale-genre/