Top Esports Games

What is Fortnite?

Fortnite is a highly popular free-to-play battle royale video game created, and published by Epic Games on September 26th, 2017. Initially released on Microsoft Windows, the game is now available on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox, and even your mobile Android, or iOS phone! The initial concept of Fortnite was for it to be a survival game, which is now a separate game called Fortnite: Save The World. This was released in July of 2017.

Being apart of the battle royale genre, Fortnite Battle Royale throws one-hundred players into an enormous battlefield. You have the option of playing solo, duo, or with a squad of your friends! The goal, is to be the last man standing which is where the battle royale name originates from. Players must take note that there is a force field that will gradually push the players closer, and closer together so that it cannot remain in a stalemate. Fortnite gets it’s name from the unique aspect of having the ability to build roofs, stairs, walls, and pyramids that provide not only cover, but an offensive opportunity to take down your foes.

With Fortnite Battle Royale’s wild success, and popularity, naturally this brought in a lot of talented players that wanted to showcase their abilities. In May of 2018, Epic Games announced that they were investing $100,000,000 into their Fortnite competitive scene, and since then they have dished out millions, and millions of dollars across the world on all platforms.

What is Apex Legends?

Apex Legends is a brand new, super popular free-to-play battle royale video game being developed by Respawn Entertainment, and published by Electronic Arts. It takes place in the same universe as Titanfall, Respawn’s FPS game. It is available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Following its release, the game has reached new heights never seen before in gaming in such a quick time frame. Only one week after it’s release, it hit 25 million total players, and over 2 million concurrent players. To put this into perspective, Fortnite had 8 million concurrent at one point in its life cycle, but this was after close to two years of the game being released. For Apex Legends to hit 2 million after just one week, is unheard of.

From playing it, and talking to people that have played it, it is unbelievable. What makes it so unbelievable, though, is how it feels like it is an arena shooter while still remaining a battle royale. It pulls the best aspects from Overwatch, Fortnite, COD: Blackout, and PUBG. The most notable addition, is the various hero classes that a lot of people compare to Overwatch. It adds a very different, and unique addition to the battle royale genre. There is a total of 8 different hero classes that each provide their own role and utility.

What is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive?

CS:GO is a now free first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. Valve also owns Steam, which is where the game is distributed. It is the fourth Counter-Strike game in the seriees, and was released on August 21st, 2012 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Linx.

The game pits two teams against one another. These two teams consist of Counter-Terrorists, that defend the bombsite, and the Terrorists, who try and plant the bomb. There are multiple bombsites for each map, and eight maps are rotated throughout the competitive map pool at any given point. These change often so the competitive players are kept on their toes.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is different than a lot of games in terms of it’s skill ceiling. While you’re going to be a superstar if you have freakish aim, there is also the ability to be a monster through game sense. Game sense is more important than raw skill, and talent within Counter-Strike simply because of the sheer amount of communication, and sounds queues there are within the game. It doesn’t matter if you can aim more quickly than a person if you see them first, or if they’re blinded by a flash bang, smoke.

What is Overwatch?

Overwatch is a first-person “hero shooter” video game developed, and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was announced at Blizzcon in 2014 as Blizzard’s first take on a FPS game, and many like to think it is a copycat of Valve’s Team Fortress. They could not be more wrong. Overwatch is available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and was released on May 24th, 2016.

As mentioned, Overwatch is a first-person hero shooter. This means that going into the game, there is an initial hero select screen. There is currently 29 playable heroes in Overwatch, and this number is slowly rising as time goes on. Blizzard tends to be a perfectionist, which slows down the production of heroes to ensure that they “get them right”. With each hero, comes different utility. There are “damage”, “tanks”, and “support” so in general there is an option for everyone.

There are four different game modes within Overwatch’s competitive scene: Assault, Control, Payload, and Hybrid. Assault consists of one team defending, and one team attacking. The attacking team has to capture multiple points varying off of each map before they get points. Control is essentially King of The Hill. Whichever team gets to 100% first, wins. Payload requires you to push a cart to the end of the map, much like Team Fortress. Escort is a combination of both Assault, and Payload. It requires you to assault the initial capture point, and from there, you have to push the payload to the end of the road.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

was the first Battle Royale game to really take it to the gaming scene. It released on December 20th, 2017 officially, but came out as an early access title in March 2017. It originally was only available on Microsoft Windows, but has since opened up to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and both iOS, Android devices.

It’s origin came from Creative Director Brendan Greene’s original vision of a custom battle royale mod within Arma. This Arma mod became wildly popular within the Arma community which eventually led to Brendan coming into contact with South Korean company Bluehole, and developing a standalone project. The name comes from Brendan’s alias within video games, PlayerUnknown.

The game sold 50 million copies worldwide by June of 2018, and hit upwards of 3 million concurrent users on Steam, surpassing both of Valve’s games, DOTA 2, and CS:GO combined.

PUBG is often considered the godfather of battle royales, and tends to hold onto it’s more military-style shooter player base with it’s recoil, vehicles, and prone functionality. The game continues to introduce real weapons within the game that provide the exact same functionality they would in real life. Snipers, will be snipers, and shotguns will be shotguns. Unlike Fortnite where your shotguns somehow become sniper rifles?