page_title: Fortnite Battle Royale
section_title: Impact
hierarchical_section_title: Fortnite Battle Royale / Reception and legacy / Impact
caption_attribution_description: Fortnite at E3 2018
context_page_description: Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially released in early access on September 26, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, followed by ports for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch the following year. Epic dropped the early access label for the game on June 29, 2020. Versions for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are planned for when they launch in late 2020.
  The concept of the game is similar to previous games of the genre: 100 players skydive onto an island and scavenge for gear to defend themselves from other players. Players can fight alone, with one additional player, or with a group of up to three others. As the match progresses, the playable area within the island gradually constricts, giving the players less and less room to work with. The last player or team alive wins the match.
context_section_description: Journalists attributed Fortnite Battle Royale's success over PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds as a combination of several factors: besides being free-to-play and available on consoles, the game was released at a time when Battlegrounds was struggling with game cheaters and a toxic community, and that it features a less violent, cartoonish quality to it that, like Minecraft, was able to draw in a younger and mixed-gendered audiences to play. Further, Epic has maintained frequent updates for the game, adding new weapons and in-game tools alongside limited-time events and longer-term narrative elements that help to further draw in players. The high interest in the game within March 2018, which has been able to draw larger audiences compared to existing multiplayer games like Grand Theft Auto Online and Destiny 2, has had a financial impact on competing publishers Take-Two Interactive and Activision Blizzard, their stocks having fallen during this period, according to analysts from Morgan Stanley and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick, on their quarterly results released May 2018, stated that "Fortnite is definitely a lot of competition right now...it’s been a really important catalyst in attracting new gamers to gaming", and the company is looking to develop its own battle royale title. Electronic Arts CEO Blake Jorgensen also considered both Fortnite Battle Royale and Battlegrounds as having a significant market impact. Jorgensen said " [Fortnite is] bringing younger people into the marketplace and younger people into first-person shooters, and I think that's good for the long run health of that category for all of us in the industry". Non-video game entertainment companies have also seen the impact of Fortnite. Netflix, in reporting its Q4 2018 results, stated that their competition is more with Fortnite, including streaming content related to the game, rather than rival television network stations like HBO.
  Part of the game's success is also considered to be related to its impact on social media. By March 2018, Fortnite Battle Royale became the most-viewed game on Twitch, exceeding the average-concurrent viewership numbers of League of Legends and Battlegrounds. Blevins has gained significant attention as one of the first major Fortnite Battle Royale streamers. He gained a large number of subscribers by March 2018, in part due to his skill and through promotions on Twitch that offered free Fortnite Battle Royale cosmetic items; by March 2018, he was estimated to be making US$500,000 a month from his streaming revenue. By the end of 2018, Blevins had reported he had made nearly US$10 million from his Fortnite streaming activities in 2018 with over 20 million subscribers to his YouTube and Twitch channels. For his success from Fortnite, Time included Blevins within its Time 100 most influential people of 2019. To acknowledge individuals like Blevins that had helped grow the popularity of Fortnite, Epic has planned a number of in-game cosmetics under the "Icon Series" based on the real-life people; in addition to Blevins, cosmetics are planned for musicians Marshmello and Major Lazer, and streamers Loserfruit and David "Grefg" Martínez.
  A number of celebrities and athletes have said they play Fortnite Battle Royale, such as Chance the Rapper, Joe Jonas, Finn Wolfhard, Roseanne Barr, and Norm Macdonald. For athletes, their appreciation for the game has taken on the form of recreating the various emotes in game as part of their on-field celebration dances. Such Fortnite celebrations were frequently throughout the 2018 FIFA World Cup event in June and July 2018, including by Antoine Griezmann after a scoring penalty kick during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final. Other notable people have expressed their fondness for the game; the Russo brothers, directors of Avengers: Infinity War, stated that they often played Fortnite Battle Royale during breaks on the film's development, leading them to propose the idea of the Thanos LTM for the game. The awareness of the game from well-known celebrities has been considered a
caption: Fortnite cosplayers at E3 2018
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