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Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks to the huge success of Fortnight and \u201cPlayerUnkown\u2019s Battlegrounds\u201d \u2014 or \u201cPUBG\u201d \u2014 similar video games have been coming out and trying to recreate their success. All of these games have brought new life to the battle royale genre. So why are these games so popular across all gaming platforms?<\/span><\/p>\n The basic concept of a battle royale-style title is this: a large number of players are dropped into a large map and the last player standing is victorious. The concept is a lot like \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d in a video game. Players have to loot and pillage the map for randomized weapons and items. To ensure that the game doesn\u2019t last indefinitely, the map will shrink as the game progresses. Over the course of a single match usually a safe zone will appear and all players have to move into that safe zone \u2014 this will happen periodically until the remaining players have nowhere to hide from each other. Vehicles are important in battle royale titles and can make the difference between players getting in the top five or not. However, some recent games don\u2019t currently have vehicles like \u201cFortnight.\u201d However in titles like \u201cH1Z1\u201d and \u201cPUBG\u201d vehicles are a major part of the games play-style. Other game mechanics like crafting, building and hunger depend on the title.<\/span><\/p>\n A Japanese book, \u201cBattle Royale\u201d by <\/span>Koushun Takami<\/span>, actually helped inspired all modern battle royale games. In the novel, 42 high school students are taken to a deserted island and forced to fight to the death. \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d by Suzanne Collins also contributed to the original idea that started the whole genre.<\/span><\/p>\n Back in 2013, a mod was made of \u201cARMA: 2\u201d called \u201cDayZ,\u201d where players tried to survive in a zombie apocalypse situation. This mod was important and eventually became its own standalone game. After Suzanne Collins\u2019s novel became popular, developers decided to remove the zombies and make a game mode for \u201cDayZ\u201d where players fought themselves instead of the undead.<\/span><\/p>\n The next big game to come out for the genre was a game made by Daybreak Game Company called \u201cH1Z1.\u201d The game didn\u2019t fully release until February 2017, but was in Steam Early Access long before that. With a massive 150-person lobby, games were hard fought and very long. \u201cH1Z1\u201d caught the eye of Twitch streamers and YouTube stars alike and the community around this game grew massively. In the past \u201cDayZ\u201d had been streamed but never caught this level of popularity. Many game developer companies saw this success and tried to replicate it in their own games by creating battle royale game modes. Titles like \u201cMinecraft,\u201d \u201cArk: Survival Evolved,\u201d \u201cGrand Theft Auto Online\u201d and \u201cPaladins\u201d created battle royale style game modes. Then new standalone games started getting released.<\/span><\/p>\n Currently, all around the gaming community, battle royale games are booming. \u201cFortnight\u201d and \u201cPUBG\u201d are massively popular and new games are sprouting up more and more. The whole structure of video games is based around risk and reward. In battle royale games you need a combination of luck, strategy and skill to be able to win a round. <\/span><\/p>\n Winning in other video game genres comes and goes frequently, except for professional players; winning in this genre is rare. Every decision is a risk and a chance you have to take whether it’s picking a place to drop in, which weapon to use, or what vehicle to use. It\u2019s this high-risk scenario that immerses gamers and makes them love these games even more. Battle royale games have been in the backseat of gaming for years but now they are taking the community by storm in a big way.<\/span><\/p>\n Contact the author at kreed17@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Photo by:\u00a0Playbattlegrounds.com,\u00a0Bohemia.net,\u00a0H1z1.com<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor Thanks to the huge success of Fortnight and \u201cPlayerUnkown\u2019s Battlegrounds\u201d \u2014 or \u201cPUBG\u201d \u2014 similar video games have been coming out and trying to recreate their success. All of these games have brought new life to the battle royale genre. So why are these games so popular across all gaming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2018\/04\/DayZ-733x1024.jpg\")
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