History of Battle Royale Games — From the Film to PUBG and Fortnite

Dozens to as many as 100 players drop onto an island empty-handed, scavenge for weapons, and fight inside a steadily shrinking safe zone until only one player or team remains. That's the basic shape of a battle royale game. In the late 2010s, the genre grew beyond gaming into a pop culture phenomenon.

In this post, we cover where the name "battle royale" came from, how a genre that started as mods for games like Minecraft and Arma established itself as standalone games, and how it continues today.

What Is a Battle Royale Game?

A battle royale game is a genre of online multiplayer game that combines a "last one standing" rule with the exploration and scavenging elements of survival games. A single match generally plays out like this:

1. All players jump out of an aircraft or similar vehicle and scatter across a large map. In many cases, each player can choose where to land.
2. At first, players have almost no gear. They must find weapons, armor, and healing items placed randomly around the map.
3. Over time, the safe zone shrinks. Being outside the zone causes damage, so players gradually converge on one area.
4. Most games give players a single life, and the last player or team left alive wins.

In team modes, you can often revive a downed teammate within a set time. Because starting positions, item placement, and safe zone locations all change every time, no two matches are the same.

Origin of the Name: The Novel and Film Battle Royale

The genre's name comes from the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale. The film is based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami (高見広春), which was also adapted into a manga in 2000. In the story, students are trapped on a remote island and forced to fight each other until only one remains, while forbidden zones steadily expand and shrink the space they can move in. Weapons and supplies must be found on site.

Three elements, a rule forcing everyone to fight, a shrinking space, and randomly obtained weapons, became the basic rules of the game genre as-is. After this work, similarly themed manga and anime followed in Japan, such as Gantz, Future Diary, and Btooom!.

Of course, the rule that "the last one standing wins" is much older. Multiplayer games with a last-one-standing rule, like Bomberman in 1990, existed long before. And surviving on a large map while gathering supplies was first popularized by the survival game genre.

Starting as Mods (2012–2016)

Battle royale as a game genre started out as mods for other games.

Minecraft Hunger Games: Shortly after the film The Hunger Games was released in 2012, a server plugin for Minecraft called "Hunger Games" (later renamed "Survival Games") was created. Players start near chests in the center of the map, and the last survivor wins.

DayZ and its derivative mods: DayZ, a mod for Arma 2 released in August 2012, was a game about surviving in a large world roamed by zombies. Players could fight each other, but the map was so large that encounters weren't frequent. So people who wanted more frequent combat and a clear winner began making new mods.

PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale mod: The most influential was the battle royale mod for DayZ first released in 2013 by Brendan Greene, who went by the name "PlayerUnknown." Drawing direct inspiration from the film Battle Royale, he added a shrinking play area and scattered weapons randomly across the map. Greene remade the mod for Arma 3 in 2014 and later also served as a consultant on H1Z1: King of the Kill.

The Era of Standalone Games (2017–2018)

The genre's decisive growth came from two games released in 2017.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

Brendan Greene joined Korea's Bluehole as creative director and turned his vision of battle royale into a standalone game. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) launched in Steam Early Access in March 2017 and was fully released in December of the same year. In September 2017, it broke Steam's concurrent player record with more than 1.3 million players, and it's regarded as the game that defined the genre. In February 2018, the mobile version, PUBG Mobile, was released. Bluehole established the holding company Krafton in 2018, and the game was renamed PUBG: Battlegrounds in 2021 before going free-to-play in January 2022.

Fortnite Battle Royale

Epic Games had already released Fortnite, a cooperative survival game, in early access. Seeing the potential of battle royale, Epic launched the free game Fortnite Battle Royale in September 2017. Its defining features were building structures, a bright art style, a free-to-play model, and cross-platform support spanning PC, consoles, and mobile. In 2018, it overtook Battlegrounds in revenue, and broadcasts by famous streamers and celebrities made it a major talking point beyond gaming.

In Asia during this period, mobile battle royales like NetEase's Knives Out and Garena's Free Fire also grew significantly.

Key Titles at a Glance

Going Mainstream (2018–Present)

After the success of these two games, major publishers jumped in one after another. Activision added a battle royale mode, "Blackout," to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 in 2018, and EA added a mode in the same format to Battlefield V. Apex Legends, a free game released by EA and Respawn Entertainment in February 2019, passed 50 million accounts within a month of launch. In March 2020, Call of Duty: Warzone was released for free.

On the other hand, there were also many failures. Because a battle royale needs a large number of players per match, matchmaking itself becomes difficult without enough concurrent players. Dozens of battle royale games were released by the end of 2019, but only two or three sustained major popularity at the same time, and some shut down within months of launch.

Battle royale rules also spread beyond shooters. Tetris 99 (2019), in which 99 people play Tetris simultaneously, spawned follow-ups like Super Mario Bros. 35 and Pac-Man 99. The "Battlegrounds" mode in the card game Hearthstone and the "Eliminator" mode in the racing game Forza Horizon 4 were also influenced by battle royale.

Design Features: Why It Became So Popular

The following are often cited as the keys to battle royale's success:

1. Everyone starts on equal footing: All players start empty-handed, so no one has an advantage from the outset.
2. A different situation every match: Landing spots, items, and the safe zone are random, so every match requires different decisions.
3. Tension from the shrinking zone: The safe zone is a device that forces fights to happen even on a large map. It naturally creates a flow where tension builds toward the end.
4. Experiences that matter even without first place: Winning is hard, but how many players you beat and how long you survived become small achievements.
5. Fun to watch: Each match has a clear story and frequent dramatic comebacks, making it well suited to streaming and spectating.
6. Free-to-play and cross-platform: Starting free and selling cosmetic items, as Fortnite and Apex Legends do, lowered the barrier to entry.

From a design standpoint, server technology that reliably handles large maps and many players, along with gathering enough concurrent players, matters far more than in other genres.

Battle Royale Today

The battle royale market today centers on a handful of long-running games, with Fortnite, PUBG and PUBG Mobile, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Free Fire as the main examples. These games continue their service by steadily adding seasonal updates, battle passes, and new maps and modes.

The genre's rules keep being reinvented in other forms, too. The structure of many players competing at once until only a few remain is used in party games, puzzle games, and card games. Genres that combine battle royale's exploration and survival elements with different goals have also emerged, like the "extraction shooter," where the goal is to gather items and escape alive.

A genre that borrowed its name from a single film began as an experiment by modders and changed the direction of the entire industry within a few years. The history of battle royale is also an example of how an idea created by a community can grow into a major genre of commercial games.

References

• Battle royale game — Wikipedia
• Battle royale game — Korean Wikipedia
• Battle Royale (film) — Wikipedia
• PUBG: Battlegrounds — Wikipedia
• Fortnite Battle Royale — Wikipedia
• Apex Legends — Wikipedia