8 Video Games You Didn't Realise Broke The Industry

8. DayZ - Popularised Battle Royale

dayz game
Bohemia Interactive

Okay, so getting the obvious thing out of the way first, I KNOW there are tons of people who love Battle Royale. It wouldn't be the most popular thing on the planet right now if there weren't, and it's inevitable that video game publishers will react to supply the demand generated by free-to-play titles like Fortnite, PUBG, and now Apex Legends.

People can enjoy what they want, and that's perfectly fine! If you don't like Battle Royale, then you can go play whatever you want... to a degree.

You see, the major problem with Battle Royale is that it encroaches into different franchises. Take Battlefield and Call of Duty, for instance. Both series made a name for themselves by providing two very different kinds of first-person-shooter experiences; Battlefield with large-scale, frenetic combat, and Call of Duty with fast-paced, close-quarters action. Now, the two most recent releases from both franchises dedicated large chunks of time to fashioning Battle Royale experiences, seemingly determined to capitalise on the latest trend at the expense of their staple game-modes.

Black Ops 4 didn't even have a single-player!

In terms of games that should be blamed for making Battle Royale 'a thing', Fortnite is most obvious to blame. It started out as a co-op, building... thing, and then pivoted to BR as soon as PUBG was developing mainstream appeal.

It wasn't the first though. That honour actually goes to DayZ, a mod for ARMA II that formally released in 2013. Yes, there was a Hunger Games mod for Minecraft that released a year earlier, but the tropes we most commonly associate with Battle Royale (military combat, hiding in bushes, etc.), started with DayZ.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.