Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds Creator Clarifies Comments Towards Fortnite Battle Royale

As you might recall, when Epic Games launched its Fortnite spin-off mode Battle Royale back in September, Bluehole Games, the studio behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, weren’t quite so happy about it, even getting to the point of “contemplating further action” against the developer – even though it doesn’t own the patent for open-world multiplayer games like it think it does. Still, its harsh words left some wondering what could come of this “action”.

Speaking with Gamespot, the creator behind the game, Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, decided to address the manner in a bit more civilized way, instead of blatantly threatening the developer of Battlegrounds‘ Unreal Engine. (Yep, that Epic Games.)

He noted, “It’s not really the case that we’re annoyed with Fortnite, it’s because of conflicts of interest with Epic and that was our point to the press, it wasn’t really communicated well,” said Greene about the “action”. “I just feel that Fortnite Battle Royale is a bit lazy to me. They could have had a great game because Fortnite is amazing and they could have put some unique, interesting building (systems) in there, almost like a tower defense Battle Royale, but they just didn’t.”

They kind of did, actually. Sure, some elements of PUBG are present in the Battle Royale mode, and it’s easy to see. However, being able to build stuff is ideal in the game, especially if you’re trying to get a higher up point on enemies. And you can’t really set up more elaborate defenses mainly because of how the storm surrounding certain areas is moving in – that, and, well, you’d be a sitting duck for whoever feels like targeting you if you spend a great deal of time building.

Could a more elaborate mode been put together? Possibly, but who’s to say for sure. The fact of the matter is, Epic Games saw an opportunity to bring in a bigger Fortnite audience and it took it, but without stealing the PUBG formula entirely – rather, providing their take on it.

And, hey, Battlegrounds has a huge enough audience already, with 15 million players strong. That’ll grow when the game comes out next month for Xbox One, and the official PC release (it’s in Early Access) drops later this year.