PUBG Corp studio director Brian Corrigan insists the relationship between the creators of Player Unknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite developer Epic games is great.
PUBG was the game that made the battle royale genre as popular as it is right now. But Epic is currently profiting from the model, having released its own free-to-play version.
One would naturally think that there's some bad blood between the two companies but, in an interview with PCGamesN, Corrigan revealed that Epic is actually one of PUBG Corp's best partners and the relationship is great, despite the former levying a lawsuit against the Fortnite creators over alleged imitation.
“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," he said. "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!”
PUBG Corp's lawsuit has since been dropped and the studios are now said to be "learning from each other." PUBG has picked up Fortnite's battle pass system but the director doesn't think the latter's model works for his company.
“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 added.
“We have a more high-intensity competitive game, we’ve got a functional esports program 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.”
Given the similarity between the two games, it would be pretty normal for the creators of the original to feel offended. It's very likely that the relationship has become amicable over time but Mr. Corrigan can't expect us to believe things were always cool. Not like there wasn't a lawsuit or anything.