Timmy turned on his Xbox and sat down in front of the TV. Being quiet not to wake up his parents, he saw John was also online. Timmy sent John an invite to play with him, and John accepted. Joining the other 45 million kids playing Fortnite, the boys set off to be the best. The two went into the lobby, then to the battle bus. From there, it was a rocket ride from Tilted Towers to a Victory Royal.

Fortnite is a cultural phenomenon. From the ads on YouTube to the kids performing dancing emotes at parties, there’s no denying the popularity of this free to play game. Because Fortnite seems to have reached the peak of its popularity, there is nowhere to go from here but down. With Fortnite player count slowly decreasing, who’s going to take over the number one spot as the best battle royal game?

In the span of just 6 months, Fortnite grew from 1,000,000 to 125,000,000 players and has steadily increased into the game we know today. However, data shows the game’s popularity is on the decline. What better game to take its place than Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout.
With the now released Call of Duty game comes the company’s first battle royal mode, Blackout. Blackout is essentially the same game mode of Fortnite, however with Treyarch’s own take on the genre. Along with Call of Duty is Battlefield 5, which also has its own battle royal mode. However, the game’s pre-order sales are lagging behind Black Ops 4 by over 85%. With millions of people pre-ordering the game to play the Blackout beta, it looks like Blackout will be a certified hit. Reviews of the battle royal are overwhelmingly positive, and the gaming community have been eager to play the full game.

Blackout has just enough variety to convince players of Fortnite and PUBG, another battle royal type of game, to give it a shot while still allowing both those games to have a steady fan base. With the signature Black Ops mechanics and graphics engine, Blackout should persuade all but the most hardcore Fortnite fans to give the game a chance. Black Ops 4 has surpassed Fortnite on the live streaming platform Twitch by over 100,000 views on its opening weekend, and it has remained at the top with over 10,000 more viewers than Fortnite. Blackout does have one major factor going against it and that’s the price. While Fortnite gained its popularity by being free and multi-platformed, Blackout is locked behind a $59.99 paywall for the whole Black Ops 4 game. Price aside, if the finished product is anything like the beta, Blackout is worth the money.
From the exciting reviews to the hilarious viral campaign, Treyarch seems to be doing something right. After complaints from the fans on graphics and game controls in the beta, Treyarch did something no one could have predicted. They listened. Treyarch has been known in the past to disregard complaints from the fanbase, but this simply was not the case in Black Ops 4. Editing the revival time along with the crawl speed to balance it out, Treyarch is listening to the community and their feedback, along with taking suggestions and using them to their highest content. If Blackout continues to evolve and grow with new updates as Fortnite did, then Black Ops 4 will most definitely take over beat Fortnite as the best Battle Royal game to date.