https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnites-crowd-pleasing-battle-royale-is-changing-vide-games-but-kinda-not-too/

Here's how it works: You and 99 other players are dropped out of a flying bus (not a typo) onto an island. You land with nothing but your wits and a pickaxe. As the game starts, there's usually space between you and the next person, which gives you time to scrounge up supplies, weapons -- and use your pickaxe to take apart walls, furniture and anything else you can find nearby. As the game goes on, the map effectively shrinks, forcing players closer together and into combat. It's them or you -- so everyone starts to pick each other off, Hunger Games style, until there's a winner.

This simple but addictive formula, called "battle royale" inside the video game industry, helped turn Fortnite into one of the biggest hits in years. On Tuesday, Fortnite maker Epic Games said during the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles that 125 million people have played Fortnite since it was released for PCs, Macs, the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One and mobile devices beginning last summer.