Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode brought in a million players on launch day

Fornite’s gambit on releasing a PUBG-like Battle Royale game mode that’s free-to-play has apparently paid off in the early going despite very strong and very public backlash from Bluehole. The Fortnite Twitter account reported earlier today that over 1 million players took part in the game’s new Battle Royale mode, perhaps validating a bit of the fear that the PUBG developers seemed to express.

Fortnite’s Battle Royale shared many similarities with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as it is a 100 player fight to the death that does manage to add its own spin to the traditional mechanics. Players are equipped with a pickaxe and a glider and can use Fortnite’s on-the-fly building mechanics to construct forts as they would normally do in the main game. In theory, this would seem to add a new level of strategy, and one that PUBG doesn’t offer as its buildings are static.

Bluehole VP and Executive Producer, Changhan Kim did step forward to clarify the company’s position on the matter, saying that their issue was more with Epic Games than it was the actual game. Bluehole pays a lot of money in royalties to Epic for their use of the Unreal Engine and felt that Epic releasing a Battle Royale game mode of their own was a conflict of interest.

Both Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are available now.

[Fortnite Twitter]