8 Video Games That Prove The Industry Has Learned Nothing

2. Radical Heights (And Every Battle Royale Clone)

The Lesson: Copying trends doesn't work.

Even though it's happened time and time again, video game publishers just can't seem to understand that chasing a booming trend that's already dominated by a handful of leaders and innovators will doom them to forever being in their shadow.

Back in the modern-military boom of the 2000s, where every game wanted to be another Call of Duty or Battlefield, countless original titles and franchises were reshaped to fit into this mould, and ended up falling by the wayside. Even hugely popular names like Medal of Honor ended up being killed in the pursuit of this insane level of success.

What killed them was the fact that players were already invested in Call of Duty and Battlefield, and it would take more than simply aping their style for a publisher to bring them over to their own game. The same thing is currently happening in the battle royale space, as every release tries to be another Fortnite or PUBG, chasing the trend at the expense of genuine creativity, and always being one step behind.

That desperation was perhaps best summed up with Radical Heights, a battle royale title obviously inspired by Fortnite's colourful take on the sub-genre. In order to capitalise on the booming interest, the title was released in what the devs called "x-treme early access" (seriously), obviously incomplete and nowhere near up to snuff. It didn't do anything new, and nobody was convinced to jump ship.