Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has had a rocky time of capturing the magic on Xbox One. Microsoft has gotten behind the game in a big way ever since announcing their exclusive deal to bring the Battle Royale title to the platform at E3 2017. While PUBG has certainly found an audience on console, there is a 10-ton elephant in the room named Fortnite. PUBG costs $30 upfront to download, with its main competitor being a Free-to-play game that has become the most popular game in the world in little over a year; there may be some room still for a second BR game to maintain a good community.

That second place spot might be up for grabs however when Fall shooter season hits with the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 4 on October 12, 2018. Treyarch's new entry into the most popular FPS franchise of all time will sport a Battle Royale mode this year in the form of Blackout.  Like PUBG, Blackout has players drop into a large map, scrounge for supplies, and attempt to outlast all other players to be the last man standing. You have an array of vehicles and items available to you as well, with helicopters being the main outlier for Call of Duty in this regard.  The Beta for this mode ended today and had people raving that the familiar feel of the Call of Duty games meshes very well with the new BR mode.  The numbers haven't come out yet, but with thousands of folks tuning into Twitch streams and thousands more talking about the beta online, it looks like Treyarch has a hit on their hands.

While any Call of Duty game is going to sell millions, the trendy popularity of Battle Royale game modes is generating more intrigue into this latest title.  Consoles are firmly Call of Duty’s turf and it would take a lot for PUBG to stand a chance against the AAA juggernaut that stands before it.  Add to the fact that PUBG is currently only on two platforms while CoD will premiere on all three major platforms on day one as well as the name recognition of a legendary franchise, it’s an almost insurmountable set of circumstances for PUBG. 

We’ll have to see how Battlefield V’s squad-based BR mode, Firestorm, pans out but Blackout seems primed for a successful launch.  Fortnite’s player count might be untouchable, due to its accessibility from practically anything that runs on electricity and being free, but if any franchise stands a chance at eating the other guy’s lunch it’s Call of Duty.  It’ll be especially attractive to people, like me, who suck at the building strategy of Fortnite and just want to find people and shoot them. 

Like the invention of Deathmatch in id shooters like Quake and Doom, the idea of a Battle Royale mode is bigger than PUBG and H1Z1 at this point.  It’s only natural we’ll see this mode, and expansions on it in our FPS games going forward.  PUBG just doesn’t seem fit enough to survive this fall.  To take this bad pun further and drive it into the ground, PUBG is caught outside of the circle while Fortnite and Call of Duty are duking it out in the center.

While PUBG is losing steam on, well, Steam, it continues to make a push in new directions. Check out how they plan to try to corner the mobile market when it comes to Battle Royale along with their new tournaments.