Fortnite Dominated Battle Royale Audience For February, But PUBG Wasn’t Far Behind

Epic Games' Fortnite and Bluehole's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds have been going neck-and-neck over the past few months to see who's the most dominant Battle Royale game, but is there a clear victor in the fight just yet?

Newzoo has recently posted some new numbers regarding the two growing multiplayer games, and while Fortnite has seen a pretty fair victory as the most-played Battle Royale game for February, PUBG is no slouch, as the game has attained a huge following, particularly in China.

As you can see from the chart below, Fortnite has grown quite a bit since it debuted its Battle Royale mode last year, with 16.3 percent audience in the genre as a whole. Close behind, however, is PUBG with an outreach of around 14.6 percent – and that's not too far off. The analytics group noted that 30.1 percent of the PC gaming audience as a whole continuously played Battle Royale games – not a bad start for a newcomer genre.

As for viewership popularity, Fortnite scored an easy victory, with 17.9 percent of total viewership hours between both Twitch and YouTube Gaming, a sizable lead over PUBG's 11.8 percent. Part of that success came from Ninja's Fortnite stream with R & B superstar Drake, which garnered a tremendous Twitch audience over the course of the evening.

While everything is coming up Fortnite with its first place victories, PUBG is still as hot as ever, especially in Asia, where 52 percent of PC players take part in the game. That's huge, especially compared to the lowly one percent that Fortnite gets in that market. Since August, it has become the most popular Western PC game in China, overtaking the previous champ, League of Legends, with ease.

Part of this growth also came from the mobile audience. Fortnite is currently on a limited beta on iOS, though it's quite successful thus far. Meanwhile, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has seen a full release on both iOS and Android, getting a huge following as a result – and that will continue to grow as Fortnite eventually expands in that market.

One thing's for sure – this battle is far from over, and both are sure to continue seeing more and more players join the Battle Royale fun.

Fortnite is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and, in a limited capacity, iOS devices. Meanwhile, PlayerIUnknown's Battlegrounds is available for PC, Xbox One (as part of its Preview program) and mobile.