Last year PUBG Corp. - developers of the battle royale game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - filed a lawsuit against Epic Games in Korea regarding accusations of copyright violations, but after this was dropped it seems there are no hard feelings, at least according to PUBG Corp. studio director Brian Corrigan.
"When [PUBG] first came out - years ago now, I guess - the idea was to just sell a copy of the game, and it's going to be great, and that's that. A lot of the season stuff has been our internal thinking evolving over time. People have this idea that there's some animosity or something with Epic, but they're one of our best partners, we talk to them all the time," he said to PCGamesN.
"While I think we can learn a little bit from how that's working over there, just like all games learn from each other, I don't think their model exactly works for us," Corrigan clarifies, so there are key differences between the pair still, despite the fact that PUBG's Survivor Pass echoes Fortnite's Battle Pass in a major way.
"We have a more high-intensity competitive game, we've got a functional esports programme that we're putting a lot of time into right now. I think maybe the way seasons will work for us is probably going to be a little bit different going forward, but I don't think we've really worked out all the details yet, to be honest."
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's not like we're taking the blueprint over there and trying to build a better photocopier. That's not it. If there's pieces that work for us, that's great, because we should learn from the best teachers across a lot of different games, but our formula is unique. That's something we understand, and we have to always remember: this PUBG formula is unique, there really is nothing else out there like it."
Both Fortnite and PUBG are titans of the battle royale genre, being released on consoles, PC, and mobile devices, and both also have thriving esports scenes too, so it makes sense that they learn from each other. PUBG has also just launched Season 4 as well, changing the original Erangel map up a bit, while Fortnite is gearing up for Season 10.
Do you like this level of cooperation?