Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) developer Bluehole has lashed out at Epic Games over the upcoming Fortnite: Battle Royale.
Speaking with PCGamer, developer Bluehole detailed why — and it’s not simply because Battle Royale is offering a massive player versus player (PvP) mode.
“The first thing that I’d like to clarify is that this is not about the battle royale game mode itself,” Bluehole’s Changhan Kim said. “There were other BR game modes earlier this year that were released, like last man standing or GTA 5’s battle royale game mode, and we never raised an issue, and I think it’s great that there’s more competition and everyone should be able to create their own battle royale game mode, and it’s not about the idea itself, it’s about Epic Games, and that wasn’t really clear [in a press release sent by Bluehole].”
Bluehole has an issue with Epic Games itself, Changhan continued.
“So, battle royale is just about last man standing, it’s a simple game mode, and we’re not claiming any kind of ownership over the game mode or genre itself, it’s not for us to even comment.”
Rather, Bluehole has taken issue with the situation as it places Epic Games as a direct competitor, Changhan explained.
“We’re going to get some technical support [from Epic Games], and we’re going to work with them to make sure Unreal Engine better supports battle royale gameplay which requires 100 people in one session, and now we’re starting to have concerns that they’re going to develop new features or improve something in the engine to support that battle royale gameplay, and then use it for their own game mode,” Changhan said.
Finally, Bluehole is offended that Epic used the PUBG brand to promote Fortnite: Battle Royale.
“It was in their promotional video that was posted on Twitter and they would openly mention that they were fans of PUBG, we wanted to make this battle royale game mode, and that kind of gave the impression that we were officially involved in this,” Changhan said. “There were players like, ‘Oh it’s cool, now we get to play PUBG in Fortnite’, and there was nothing we could do about it, because it was depicted that we were officially involved.”
PUBG is in early access on Steam and is also being developed for Xbox One. Fortnite: Battle Royale is a free title heading to Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4 this week.
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