It seems that everyone is jumping on the battle royale bandwagon in the wake of PUBG's success and of course the unstoppable rocketship that is Fortnite. Triple AAA developers are investing in the battle royale phenomenon with their mega franchises like Call of Duty and Battlefield. Rumors abound of the next Halo having battle royale too.
There are plenty of smaller developers trying to get their share as well. Darwin Project by developer Scavenger Studios has an interesting twist. One player becomes the director of the round and they can view and speak to the different players in the match and decide to help or hurt whomever they choose. It's available now in early access and is actually a lot of fun if you don't get a troll director. Islands of Nyne by Define Human Studios is another one that garnered a lot of attention on twitch when some big name streamers were checking it out. It's currently in an invite only alpha test but is looking very promising.
Will any of these games be able to dethrone the behemoth that is Fortnite? Probably not anytime soon. Fortnite is rolling strong, selling an insane amount of skins and battle passes, and has just introduced its first partnership with Marvel to bring Infinity Ward heroes into special limited time game modes in Fortnite. Thanos being the first to make the leap into the Fortnite universe. I am sure there will be many more such partnerships in the future. Almost any brand that does not mind some violence seems a great fit for Fortnite cosmetics. Brands such as WWE, Rick and Morty, and various celebrities and famous Twitch streamers all seem a perfect fit. The possibilities are endless.
It's hard to see how anyone will catch Fortnite when they are making hundreds of millions each month from digital skins. They will certainly have the money to keep the game fresh, and they will need to. By the time many of these other battle royale games come out Fortnite will have been out for a year or more so they may be ripe for the picking. However lets not forget that Fortnite has already made several streamers into millionaires. Dozens are making a decent living. Fortnite leveraged this cheap direct advertising and made the most of it. They are working with streamers and even including them in the game [+]. At this point it will be incredibly hard to get any of the top streamers to invest a lot of time in another battle royale game because their fanbase wants Fortnite and pays them well to see it.
It's my personal opinion that in order for anyone to compete with Fortnite they will have to mimic the building system in some way. It's what makes the game great and differentiates it form the rest of the pack. The other things that I think a Fortnite killer will need to do to compete is for it to be free to play and on all major platforms. I just dont see the major brands like Call of Duty or Halo giving their games away for free so its unlikely they could get the numbers Fortnite is getting. I dont see a fortnite killer on the horizion but it does look like a lot of gaming fun is heading our way soon. I know I will be checking them all out because the mode is just too much fun.