King Of Gaming: FortniteVs. Apex Legends
In the world of video games competitive shooters have always been extremely popular. So, it was no surprise when the new “battle royale” games came out hey were a huge hit. Battle royale games like Fortnite, Apex legends, and PUBG throw 100 players in a shrinking arena to battle to the death, the last one standing is the winner. These modes became so popular, traditional shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield added these game modes to their existing games.
Fortnite and Apex Legends are the games responsible for this massive success in the exciting new sub-genre. Fortnite started the trend back in August of 2017, however it took a couple months after launch to truly collect the attention of gamers. After the trend had fully started, Respawn Entertainment released Apex Legends in January of 2019 to an overwhelming reception.
Both of these titles stand out from other battle royale games mainly because they are completely free to play. Players can buy character and weapon skins in randomized packs, but it is completely optional. This formula has taken over the gaming world.
Even though both Fortnite and Apex legends stand out as the top-two battle royale games, Fortnite is clearly still the most dominant and well-known game in the genre. As seen in the chart below, in 2019 Fornite has dominated the Apex in search relevance, even though Apex is second in line for most played battle royale. Apex’s overwhelming launch still was not enough to come close to reaching the popularity of Fortnite.
To be fair, Google search relevance does not always shine light on which game is most popular. A better way to measure a games success would to see how many players each game has. Since Apex Legends just came out this year and Fortnite has been out well over a year, we can only compare the games reception in the opening months.
The chart above shows how many players logged on to Fortnite and Apex Legend in the first month, third month, and six months after their respective launch. Apex Legends seems to blow Fornite out of the water when it comes to how many players initially logged onto the game.
One thing to keep in mind though, Fortnite started the trend if the battle royale games, Apex Legends hopped on the trend way after it started. The proof of this is seen in the chart below. Fortnite struggles to keep up with Apex Legend’s first six months, but after that Fornite more than tripled its number of players and is now considered the most popular game in the world.
It is unfair to say Apex Legends won’t hit these same numbers since it has not been out nearly as long as Fortnite has. However, Fortnite has definitely cemented its legacy as one of, if not the, most popular video games of all time. Fortnite not only started a trend, its consistently grown and stayed in the spotlight months after its initial take off. Love or hate Fortnite, it is currently the king of gaming and is going nowhere soon.
