At the time of writing, Epic Games hasn't responded to Bluehole's original statement or these newly released comments. With PUBG recently crossing 10 million sales and Fortnite quickly rising to prominence, what remains abundantly clear is that many will continue offering their own thoughts on the situation, as it doesn't seem it can be easily swept under the
Kim added that Bluehole simply wished that Epic Games would have approached them first, given the close working dynamic they had together with support for 100-player sessions in PUBG . According to Kim, Bluehole felt that going to Epic Games for support allowed the Epic Games to then understand how 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" rather than continue a working relationship with Bluehole and PU
"Before we actually looked deeper into how similar [ Fortnite 's Battle Royale ] is, we wanted to raise an issue because this is from Epic Games. We could be the biggest indie success story that they have and there will be other indie developers that aspire to succeed like us using Unreal Engine, and they would be concerned, right? So we just wanted to raise an issue and let people know that it can be a probl
It seems that the comparisons have not gone unnoticed by the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ' ( PUBG ) team either, as today, developer Bluehole sent out a press release criticizing Epic Games over its Fortnite update. Bluehole vice president Chang Han Kim Eeejp says, "After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known." Kim also reveals that Bluehole has had "an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG ’s development as they are the creators of [Unreal Engine 4], the engine we licensed for the ga
Moreover, the Bluehole executive takes issue with Epic Games' promotion of the Fortnite Battle Royale mode. In the announcement post for the Fortnite update, Epic specifically states that it "loves" battle royale games like PUBG . In the game mode's announcement trailer, Epic's creative director Ronald Mustard references both PUBG and H1Z1 (which has a standalone battle royale mode called King of the Kill ) as areas of inspirat
"You probably won't believe me when I say this but whenever I go online and I hear other players use the same kind of language I did, I always find it extremely immature and stupid. And I hate how I now personally fed into that part of gaming as well. It was something I said in the heat of the moment. I said the worst word I could possibly think of. And it just sort of slipped out. I'm not going to make any excuses as to why it did because there are no excuses for it. I'm disappointed in myself because it seems like I've learned nothing from all these past controversies. And it's not that I think I can say or do whatever I want and get away with it. That's not it at all. I'm just an idi
What many gaming fans disagreed with in the original statement was the implication that Bluehole had some type of ownership over battle royale or last man standing game modes. Kim made it clear that the developer isn't in any way claiming that. "It's not for us to even comment," he said. Kim then reiterated that the focus of Bluehole's apparent frustration is Epic Games, who specifically mentioned PUBG in its marketing materials for the new gameplay m
When Epic Games announced that Fortnite would be getting a Battle Royale game mode , the comparisons to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds were instantaneous. With both games now offering 100 player, PvP gameplay, many wondered how Battlegrounds would be able to fend off this new challe
The Battlegrounds team is "concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known for," with Kim warning that the Bluehole team is "contemplating further action." At this point, it's unclear exactly what that this "further action" might look like, but if Bluehole does decide to file a lawsuit, then it could put the future of Fortnite 's soon-to-be free to play game mode at r
Moving forward, Kim hopes to start an official conversation between Bluehole and Epic Games. He again stated that this entire situation is only a problem because Epic Games makes the engine Bluehole uses, and that the developer pays "a large amount of royalties" to Epic Games. "We had this business relationship and we had trust that we would be getting continued support, and we were looking forward to working more closely with them to get technical support, maybe develop new features," stated Kim. "Our name was used to officially promote their game without our knowledge. There was no discussion. It was just a bit surprising and disappointing to see our business partner using our name officially to promote the game mode that is pretty similar to us and there was misunderstanding in the community that we're officially involved in the proje
