Which Is Better: Fortnite or PUBG? It's A Mobile Royale!

The Fortnite vs PLAYERUNKNOWN’S Battlegrounds showdown has found a new theater of war, and the mobile gaming scene has been turned upside down because of it. Reactions abound for both games, and while players seem generally pleased with how the battle royale heavyweights have translated to their pockets there are some glaring issues to work out before the games are perfect. Below are some of those reactions, as well as what to watch out for when you drop into battle for the first time.

Both games have gotten similar praises for how close the mobile version came to replicating the real thing. The video above from YouTuber NickAtNyte is a great example of it, as he is consistently surprised with how well the game looks as he plays. He notes the graphics at 3:25 of the video, giving particular praise to the glider on the way down to the map, and other reactions we’ve found seem to agree. The PUBG Mobile gameplay video below carries similar sentiments, talking about how the game is very similar in look and feel to the console or PC counterparts.

One quick personal note: as of this writing I am leaning toward PUBG over Fortnite, but only because I’ve finished no better than 61st on Fortnite Mobile while PUBG is a different story:

One game of #PUBGmobile, one Chicken Dinner. I may retire 1–0. pic.twitter.com/IBiuxA9W0y

— Jason Fanelli (@BigManFanelli) March 25, 2018

I’ll get into the likely reason for this anomaly later on.

Played 3 games, Mobile, iPhone 8, brand new, went from 100% battery to 21% battery life. from r/FortNiteBR

Let’s talk about the biggest issue facing both games equally: battery life. Mobile gaming, convenient as it may be, still hasn’t found a proper counter for battery-intensive games, requiring a person be plugged into a wall in order to play for long periods of time and thus negating the entire benefit of “mobile” gaming. Both Fortnite and PUBG suffer from this issue, I myself watched my battery dwindle from 95% to 72% in just that one Chicken Dinner match I showed off above. The battery struggle is indeed real.

Does anyone else hate mobile controls? from r/FortNiteBR

A major issue with players of Fortnite Mobile seems to be the control scheme, as the touchscreen controls Epic has chosen are not boding well with the controller or keyboard inclined. Many complaints like the one above can be found all over social media, with one player specifically comparing it to another mobile battle royale game, Rules of Survival. “Rules of Survival, a mobile BR, has decent enough controls that actually are fit for thumbs,” Reddit user pik4bu explains. “The Fortnite mobile UI just feels too small.” This could become a major accessibility issue for future Fortnite fighters, as a lack of comfortable controls will turn even the most hardcore players off very quickly.

Even with bots, this type of person is ruining pubg mobile from r/PUBGMobile

PUBG Mobile found a way around the control scheme issue: enable keyboard and mouse support within the game. This of course has opened up its own can of worms, as keyboard warriors are now pilfering the poultry prizes through familiarity alone. Players like the one mentioned in that Reddit post are at a major advantage before even dropping into the arena, and his or her opponents have no way of knowing what’s coming for them. They expect a fair playing field with everyone on the same level, and then here comes Keyboard Kevin and his souped-up mobile QWERTY to feast on the unsuspecting. Is there a way to group the keyboarders together, or at least indicate who’s on keys and who’s on touch? That’s a discussion for the devs, but we hope the answer is “yes.”

Bots are a terrible idea. They kill the reason BR games are popular in the first place. from r/PUBGMobile

Perhaps the most galling complaint with PUBG Mobile, and the reason for that Chicken Dinner of mine from earlier in the article, is the apparent presence of bots within each match. It’s hard to describe how disheartening it is to finally achieve that first Chicken Dinner, the first one even across any platform, only to find out some of the combatants were AI bots and not humans. Here’s a perfect example, from my personal Twitter feed:

Hate to tell ya, you’re playing bots. You don’t start getting a ton of real players until lvl 10. Been playing all day!

— Chis stilo (@CrankinCrix) March 25, 2018

My good friend Chris popped the balloon that was my joy not 12 hours after my victory, revealing the ruse to me for the first time. How are players supposed to be excited about playing the game if they’re met with just as many AIs as human players? I find it hard to believe PUBG Mobile doesn’t have the player base to fill a match with 100 players, so we can only assume there’s an underlying technical issue causing this. Let’s hope whatever it is that invited these bots to the party sends them back to Westworld or wherever they came from soon, because any Chicken Dinners won now are basically tainted meat.

Both Fortnite Mobile and PUBG Mobile have done well in bringing their respective games to the mobile scene, but to say they are without issue is an understatement. From batteries to bots there’s a lot of wrinkles to iron out, and the community has made their voices heard. Can these issues be fixed in time to keep the masses happy? We’ll have to wait and see, but for now we’ll just have to eat our chicken with a robotic fork and hope the battery lasts long enough to finish the meal.