PUBG Corp has filed a lawsuit against Fortnite developer Epic Games in Korea, alleging copyright infringement.
The Korean developer claims Fortnite: Battle Royale has copied ideas from Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds according to a report by the Korea Times. Those allegations will now be tested in court, as the relationship between the two companies continues to sour.
This isn’t a hugely surprising move from PUBG Corp. Back in September, just a week after Fortnite‘s Battle Royale mode was unveiled, PUBG Corp made clear it was not happy with Epic Games.
“We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG’s development as they are the creators of UE4, the engine we licensed for the game,” vice president of PUBG Corp parent company Bluehole Chang Han Kim said at the time. “After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.”
Kim also said that PUBG Corp would “contemplate further action” as PUBG players “continues to provide evidence of the many similarities” between PUBG and Fortnite: Battle Royale.
The companies have been inextricably linked since the beginning of PUBG‘s development. Epic Games owns the Unreal Engine that PUBG runs on. The two companies also share an owner—Chinese super conglomerate Tencent Holdings. Tencent owns 40 percent of Epic Games, and 10 percent of Bluehole.
This isn’t the first copyright infringement lawsuit PUBG Corp has filed either. In April it filed lawsuits against NetEase over two mobile games that PUBG Corp alleged were clones of PUBG.
