One Thing PUBG Needs to Steal From Fortnite: Battle Royale

Fortnite: Battle Royale is officially live on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Epic Games has launched the PVP mode as a standalone free-to-play release. Right now, it's pretty barebones, with no customization, leaderboards, and statistics, which oddly enough helps Fortnite Battle Royale side-step one of the problems I had with Fortnite proper, in that there's too many mechanics getting in the way of the game itself.

There are gameplay concepts taken from PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but the result isn't quite the same. The shooting is a bit softer, there's less of a focus on hiding, and the building leads to some interesting encounters, like when another player simply built a wall to prevent me from sniping them. Epic Games needs to tweak the number of players, as the map is entirely too small for 100 players, but it's currently a fun diversion and certainly not a threat to PUBG.

There is one thing Epic Games has added to Fortnite: Battle Royale that Bluehole should absolutely steal for PUBG, at least in solo play. When you die, you automatically jump into spectator camera for the person that killed you. When they're killed, your spectator camera jumps to who killed them, on and on down the line until the end of the match.

One, this fixes a problem I currently have with PUBG: Who killed me? Where were they? Unless they're up in my face, I lack the ability to learn from the encounter, because sometimes I simply have no idea where my death came from.

Two, it gives you something to watch. My drive in the game is transferred to whoever killed me. Either I want them to succeed where I failed because they had an amazing kill, or I'm waiting to see who's going to kill them and get me my revenge. The spectator camera gives you a reason to keep watching the match, as opposed to PUBG, where I immediately bounce out to the lobby.

I stress that this is a solo-only option, as having that ability in Squads would be a bit gamebreaking, something Fortnite Battle Royale understands as well. But it's a great little addition that I'd like to see in PUBG.

That said, Fortnite: Battle Royale is just a bit of fun within Fortnite proper. Maybe it'll turn out like H1Z1: King of the Kill, where the sub-mode becomes bigger than the primary game, but right now Battle Royale has one foot in PvP and the other firmly within Epic's original title. I wouldn't be concerned, Bluehole.