5 Mistakes PUBG Made that Allowed Fortnite to Dominate

It’s genuinely incredible just how much the gaming landscape has changed over the last year. A space that was once dominated by online first-person shooters and big budget sequels now pales in comparison to the battle royale genre which has since taken the world by storm. The genre has been around for a while now, sure, but PUBG definitely brought it kicking and screaming into the mainstream, offering up an impossibly fun and genuinely tense gameplay experience.

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The game dominated headlines week after week, breaking sales records and concurrent player counts. Its rise seemed unstoppable, that is until a quirky crafting/horde mode hybrid decided to get in on the action. Fortnite took what everyone loved about PUBG and made it more accessible and in the process, became the top dog. And while an argument could be made that Fortnite earned its place at the top, there are also many missteps made by its competitor that made it that much more easy.

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Mistakes PUBG Committed That Dropped it Below Fortnite

PUBG is, at its very core, a very simple game. It aims to offer up a realistic military shooter with a twist, which positions it at a cut above the rest. At launch there was one map, a few modes which largely did the same thing, and not much else. The game seemed laser-focused on delivering what it thought was the definitive battle royale experience and in the process, blocked out what was happening around it. What it did offer was undoubtedly thrilling though. There are few games that can produce the amount of tension and drama that PUBG can, with player skill and split-second decision making being the key factors for success. Problem is, by providing a very particular experience, the game settled on a very particular audience, one which yearned for the military shooter experiences that had largely died out. For such a particular audience though, PUBG’s was a large one. The game cultivated an anecdotal following, with its core concept being both simple to explain and enticing as all hell.

You can forgive the team for being a little narrow-minded when it came to the game’s scope. There was simply no way they could have known that the game would explode like it did, but once it did, they should have started setting their sights a little higher. A big reason as to why Fortnite has more players is because it appeals to more players by casting a wider net. By including different variations on its core battle royale gameplay, like the rocket launchers-only modes for example, the game seems bigger, more meaty than PUBG. Things are definitely getting better for PUBG in terms of variety, with the team announcing new event modes and a smaller map which mixes up the gameplay. This all seems a little too late, however, and perhaps should have been considered during the very beginning because, as it stands today, Fortnite seems to have a bigger vision for the genre.


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Jake Green
A Nintendo evangelist and X-Files super-fan, Jake can be found peddling his gaming opinions online. He has a soft spot for VR and values story-telling in gaming above all else.