Fortnite is the most popular video game in the world. This game falls under the battle royale genre, which involves a hundred players dropping onto an island with a huge map to explore. As the map shrinks, players must attempt to survive as long as possible - becoming the last man standing.

However, players and critics struggle with who should be credited with inventing the genre. Options have surfaced among PUBG, Fortnite, and the movies. PUBG might have been the first one out of the stadium, but where did it garner the inspiration? Did the last man standing concept evolve in a video game?



This concept was first shown in the movies decades before games like "Call of Duty: Warzone" and "PUBG" gained popularity. The best battle royale movies featured characters murdering one another in a central location.

Battle Royale video games are named after the novel-turned-film by Kinji Fukasaku with the same name, Battle Royale. The movie shows the Japanese government in a moment when it was fed up with juvenile delinquency. The government took a middle school class and exiled them to a remote island.

The students were pitted against each other in battles to the death until only one survivor was left. The genre was born then, in a novel-turned-movie.