The developers of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds initially had a lot of trouble with Fortnite and its developer Epic Games. However, the waters have since calmed and there is now once again full respect and appreciation for the “best partner.”
What was the problem with PUBG and Fortnite? Before Fortnite really took off, PUBG firmly held the throne of the battle royale genre. When the battle royale mode of Fortnite became more popular, PUBG reacted irritably and threatened with a copyright lawsuit. Among other things, because they were using Epic’s Unreal Engine and therefore suspected that Epic had copied from PUBG.
The whole matter backfired for PUBG, generating a lot of free PR for Fortnite and ultimately ending inconclusively, without Epic being held accountable.
This is how well the Fortnite studio is getting along again
This is how the situation developed: In an interview on the site PCGamesN, PUBG studio director Brian Corrigan explained the current state of the relationship with Fortnite developer Epic:
“People have this idea that we harbor some kind of animosity, but we are actually best partners and talk to each other constantly.”
This is how both games learn from each other: Corrigan further elaborated on how both studios support each other. For one, PUBG still uses Epic’s Unreal Engine, which requires quite a bit of collaboration.
Additionally, working on two battle royale games also leads to mutual influence and inspiration, which should not be equated with simple copying:
“I think we can definitely learn a bit from how they [Epic] operate, as almost all games can learn from each other. I just don’t think that their model works the same way for us.
We have the more intense competitive game and we have a functioning eSports program that we are continually developing. We might change the approach to how our seasons play out; to be honest, we haven’t clarified all the details yet.
But it’s not that we simply want to take the blueprint and create a ‘better copier’ out of that. That’s not it. If there are parts that work well, then that’s great, because we should learn from the best, but our formula is unique.”
So it seems all is well again between PUBG and Fortnite. Indeed, both games are now different enough to engage their share of battle royale fans.
