The release of Call of Duty: Warzone on PC and consoles renewed a lot of people’s interest in the battle royale genre. Once a red-hot game mode a couple years ago, battle royales have maintained their prominence despite finding more competition with other popular genres like autochess and more traditional multiplayer shooters, particularly on mobile.
Fortnite Chapter 3 has rolled out and the internet is buzzing with excitement. Chapter 2 had a rather flipping end with a bunch of new additions to the gameplay. There’s a new weather system, locations, and a pass loaded with cool rewards.
Cosmetics are one of the many reasons why Fortnite continues to be a favourite with FPS fanatics. And Epic Games leaves no stone unturned when it comes to loading the game with new and unique character skins and outfits frequently.
Over the years, Fortnite has collaborated with movies, famous characters, and brands to bring a new vibe to the game. This time, players will be able to wear the Cool Grey Sneakers by Air Jordan.
Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 8 is live and players have already started exploring the island once again. This time, giant purple cubes (Kevin the Cube) have been scattered all over the place. The cubes are entrances to a new place known as Sideways.
So, what are Sideways? Simply put, Sideways are essentially an alternate universe loaded with Cube Monsters. The place defies gravity, has minimal shelters and can be accessed via a portal.
Fortnite has been the big hitter in mobile gaming this year, and it's not hard to see why. Thanks to some excellent marketing, and a polished experience that almost anyone can enjoy, it's really taken the App Store by storm.
But there are other battle royale experiences out there if you want to try something different. Some of them are terrible though, so we thought it'd be a good idea to round up what we think are the very best games like Fortnite for iPhone.
We've included links that will let you download the games as well, we're good like that. If you think we've got our suggestions wrong, then feel free to add your own in the comments at the bottom of the article. And don't forget to check out all the other lists on the site by clicking here. Now, without further ado, let's get on with the choices.
I spent the better part of my weekend playing Flappy Royale. I didn’t necessarily want to. I just felt like I had to. It’s a hypnotic experience that’s way too easy to just keep playing.
Flappy Royale is the brainchild of Orta Therox, Em Lazer-Walker, and Zach Gage. It's a very simple idea: Take the the rules of Battle Royale games (e.g. PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends) and apply them to Flappy Bird. 100 players play as birds that jump out of a bus. From there, they must fly between as many pipes as possible until one player is deemed the champion.
The game controls pretty much exactly like Flappy Bird did back in 2013. The only real differences are the hopping out of the bus (presumably inspired by the Fortnite Battle Bus) and 99 ghost birds flapping on screen with you, all competing for the number one spot.
This latter element—the ability to see other players play while you do—is the secret sauce that makes Flappy Royale such a tantalizing challenge. You can always see your competition flapping alongside you, and you want beat all of them. If you can’t do that, maybe you settle for getting a top 50 finish before diving in again to see if you can do better.
Although it’s not officially released, anyone can go and download the beta release of the game here. In this early state though, the game is already quite popular. Here are some stats Orta Therox shared about the game over the weekend:
Oh… Damn. I was doing the stats wrong.
600,000 games were played on mobile native. 1,300,000 games were played on web.
Current Flappy Royale statistics: 20 games started per second right now, with 600,000 games so far. Looks like folks average about 50 plays per session.
2 million games of Flappy Royale is really impressive, especially considering it populates each of those games with 100 players. Where it starts feeling downright magical is when you consider that all of these matches start pretty much instantly.
The way Flappy Royale eliminates any sort of queue times for matches is ingenious, and probably another big reason for the game’s stickiness. Instead of filling matches with bots or waiting for 100 live players to play a level at once, the game pits you against the ghost data of the last 99 players who played the level before you. In other words, you’re always playing against other people, but you don’t have to wait for them to log in for you to do so.
Right now, Flappy Royale really feels like it has huge potential. It successfully distills the most thrilling aspects of Battle Royale into a really tight mobile package. A lot of this has to do with how quick and easy it is to play ten rounds without blinking, so here’s to hoping the game doesn’t get too bloated with extra features or monetization schemes before it officially releases.
This month, we're looking back at the first half of 2018, looking at the good, the bad, and everything in between. In this piece we're having a think about the big changes that have happened in mobile gaming over the past six months, and what they might mean for mobile gamers moving forwards.
It's our job to keep an eye on the trends, new ideas, and new concepts that are happening in mobile, and we've had a good long think and decided that these five were the biggest changes in 2018. If you've spotted any that you think are worth mentining, then make sure you toss them in the comments section at the bottom of the article.
What happens when you take the battle royale template and mix it into a more mobile shape? Well, what happens is Battlelands Royale. It's like if Fortnite had a little brother who wanted to copy its elder sibling, and did so in the most adorable way.
You get everything you get in the likes of Fortnite (apart from the building). There's shooting, a drop zone, equipment to discover, and an ever-shrinking playfield upon which to try and slaughter every other player and be crowned the champion.
But does simplifying things make them better? That's the question we're going to ask in this here article - is Battlelands Royale better than Fortnite?
Battle royale games are all the rage on the App Store at the moment. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the origins of the genre, but now it's time to get the crystal balls out and think about what might be the future for the giant deathmatches we all know and love. With PUBG and Fortnite both available for iOS now, and a good handful of clones out there as well, what can the genre do to stay relevant in a world as changeable as our own? Or is this going to be another flash in the pan genre that falls by the wayside before it's really had the chance to grow? Read on to find out what we think.
The history of the battle royale genre isn't a long one. While the nascent parts of the experience have existed ever since players first started killing one another online, it's really only in the past six years that the genre has coalesced into something specific, with distinct parts that define whether a game does or doesn't fit into the specific pigeonhole.
Fortnite and PUBG might be the names connected to the massive online shooters now, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, the genre started out thanks to a number of strange confluences in the pop-culture zeitgeist. And the coming together of those ideas wasn't the preserve of companies and focus groups - a good deal of the battle royale genre stems from its players. It's those ideas, and those players, we need to trace to understand the behemoth that's barreling through the App Store at the moment.
Oh hi nice reader, and thanks for popping in to check out our weekly round-up of all the stuff that you might have missed across the Steel Media network. Yeah, that's right, it's a big ol' network. Obviously 148Apps is the best, but there are some other awesome sites involved too.
And like I say, this is a weekly round-up. So it'll happen next week as well. Essentially we want to make sure that you're up to date with all the comings and goings of the world of mobile and portable gaming. Come back next week, and you'll have all the knowledge to wow your friends and shut down your foes.
In just over a week, Epic Games has made a flurry of announcements. First, they revealed that Fortnite—their ultra-popular PUBG competitor—is coming to mobile. This was followed by brief sign-up period for interested beta testers before sending out their first round of invites yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on one of these early invites, so we can clear the air on exactly what Fortnite on mobile is like.
Before last week, if you asked me which game I prefer between Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), I’d choose the latter just about 100% of the time. Now that we know that both games are primed to hit our mobile screens soon (you can even sign up for Fortnite here), I’m not so sure I’d have the same response. Between both of these games, Fortnite seems primed to be a much better mobile experience than PUBG, and here’s why:
