One hundred people drop onto an otherwise deserted island; only one is left standing. Sound familiar?
The battle royale genre has exploded in the past few years. “Fortnite” and “Apex Legends” dominate the scene these days, but earlier it was Playerunknown Battlegrounds (PUBG). There was also “The Hunger Games,” but perhaps most importantly, “Battle Royale,” the Japanese film, that predated them all. So to truly get to the bottom of the craze, we’ve got to go back to where it all began.
Battle Royale is the namesake of this genre of media, so appropriately it’s credited as the source of this multimedia phenomenon. The idea of people, and even kids, being stranded on an island and fighting to the death did not exactly originate with this Japanese movie (consider “Lord of the Flies”), but it did popularize it. The movie was a critical and cultural hit in Japan and gained a cult following after a more subtle release in the U.S. in 2010. That’s when Hollywood took the idea and ran with it. Around that same time came “The Hunger Games” novels, books that were highly derivative of “Battle Royale” that got the average, young American interested in the concept.
Now these were the days when Minecraft dominated the scene of gaming, as simple modding tools and ease of access caused near limitless possibilities. It was Minecraft, not PUBG, that pioneered battle royales in gaming. Modders created a game mode where a number of players would spawn around a “cornucopia” in a randomized map and fight to the death. These early “Hunger Games” game modes in Minecraft gained popularity via popular YouTubers.
Eventually, PUBG created a game that was only this “Hunger Games” mode, except they had their players drop in wherever they wanted. This was the first true, complete battle royale video game. After Epic Games added a battle royale mode to their failing game, called “Fortnite,” the mode exploded onto the mainstream, and it has never looked back.
Though battle royales aren’t as big in the areas of film or other traditional mediums, they have become a mainstay in video games. There are battle royales in “Call of Duty,” “Battlefield,” even “Tetris” has battle royale (which I’ve won by the way).
These games are incredibly addictive, especially once you’ve won. You’re just constantly chasing that feeling of victory again. No other game has done that on such a large scale, and I think that really speaks to the job that Epic Games and other pioneers of this genre have done.
