A couple of weeks ago Epic announced that their own take on the battle royale genre would be added to their co-op builder/shooter Fortnite which is still in early access. Not only did they add the new mode quickly for testing but they are also making completely free to everyone.
This move has not impressed PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds developer Blue Hole who has released a statement today raising concerns about the mention of PUBG as inspiration for Epic’s own mode in Fortnite in pre-release comments. They are also concerned about similarities in gameplay.
“We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG‘s development as they are the creators of UE4, the engine we licensed for the game”, said Bluehole VP Chang Han Kim. “After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.”
Epic has not been shy at stating that games such as H1Z1 and PUBG are an inspiration for Fortnite‘s new mode which was noticed by Bluehole. “We have also noticed that Epic Games references PUBG in the promotion of Fortnite to their community and in communications with the press. This was never discussed with us and we don’t feel that it’s right,” said Han Kim.
It is inevitable that other developers will try and replicate the gameplay of PUBG, it’s been a huge success shifting huge numbers and breaking concurrent user records on Steam. The problem for Bluehole is the fact that Epic has made their battle royale mode completely free to everyone from next week.
Whether this will go beyond a statement remains to be seen but Han Kim does add, “The PUBG community has and continues to provide evidence of the many similarities as we contemplate further action”.
Published: Sep 22, 2017 03:22 pm