The coronavirus has meant a near world-wide lockdown, as people have been told to spend most of their time in their own homes. That has meant that people are looking to entertainment themselves from their own homes, with gaming as expected seeing a huge surge in players. Movie streaming platforms are also proving hugely popular, in what is a ‘booming’ period for online services.
As expected, gaming continues to rise each year, with many different platforms seeing near record numbers, with many looking to get a bet365 bonus code in order to use whilst in this lockdown. Also, gaming streamers are also breaking through and Twitch has seen multiple records broken within this current lockdown. This includes for total hours watched and the amount of streamers, as the popularity continues to grow in gaming.
One type of game that really has seen a major surge in recent years is ‘Battle Royal’, with both Fortnite and now Warzone leading the way for the genre. Apex Legends and PUBG are other games that covers the same format.
Battle Royale games are all about survival and it simply is last man/team standing wins. Teams and players start with minimal equipment, so must find these in order to help them eliminate the other players. The area around them will then continue to close and ‘shrink’, meaning people must engage with others. The winners are then the individual or team who is the last to survive. This gameplay is hugely exciting, which is why it continues to prove so popular in the gaming world at present.
Fortnite has long held the ‘Battle Royale’ crown since offering this gameplay in 2017 and sold over five million copies in the opening three months of its release. The popularity has continued to rise and it is also now believed there is around 250 million players world-wide and it has now become a huge esports game. For example, with the Fortnite World Cup, with the 2019 winner Bugha picking up $3 million USD for winning the solo competition.
But could Fortnite now have a rival in the ‘Battle Royal’ platform, as the popularity continues to rise for Call of Duty: Warzone. Warzone has been a recent release, following the new Modern warfare game. It offers a huge map for players, with buy stations and the ability to get your killed teammates back into the game. It has received high reviews from players, as the popularity continues to rise for the game. Could we yet see it become a esports classic and even challenge Fortnite in the future?
I definitely think it is, been playing and seeing a lot more friends get into it now that we have a break due to the pandemic.
Hopefully this gets them to come up with good updates and feature improvements for many games
Pretty much all games have seen a rise in players due to this pandemic, not just “battle royal” games.
It’s going down pretty steadily now though.
Fortnite’s been losing popularity for some time now. I think the release of newer games has been causing a decline in the battle royale genre in recent months, especially with games like the first-person shooter game Valorant and the social deduction game Among Us.
In fact, I think if the lockdowns have done anything to change gaming, it probably increased the popularity of social games like Among Us, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (which is about to be the #1 most sold game on the Switch), and many more social games. You have to realize that before the lockdowns, many people were more productive in their life, so these aren’t the types of people that would spend all day in competitive genres like battle royale, but would be more like the types of people that would enjoy lax genres like social instead and would enjoy playing with families and friends.