FreeFire
Released 3 months before PUBG Mobile, FreeFire is arguably PUBG’s biggest competitor on mobile platforms. Published by Garena, a Singaporean company, FreeFire features faster gameplay, greater customizations for characters and weapons. People seems to really like its more arcade gameplay, as it was the highest grossing game in the US in the first quarter of 2021.
The game features special characters like another game we will be talking about later. With some skins of those characters adding even more skills and traits than their normal versions. The same could be said about the game’s guns. This, however, has sparked some controversy as people who spend real money into the game could have the advantage over the free-to-play ones.
The game is incredibly light, staying at 1Gb – 2Gb (gigabytes). This is amazing as the game has a lot of cosmetics and gamemodes, talking of which, they have 15 of them. Although, a lot of them is only available in special events, the following is the all-time-available modes:
- Battle royale: a standard last man standing mode with 52 players
- Clash Squad: a team gamemode which consists of 4 people each side. The gameplay loop is similar to that of CSGO (Counter Strike: Global Offensive)
- Lone Wolf: a Clash Squad variant where there is only 1 – 2 player on each side of the team
- Craftland: a map creator for FreeFire
The game is entirely free to play and is available for both Android and iOS, give it a try if you like speed battles!
Apex Legends Mobile
Talking about speed, we have Apex Legends. The game was developed by Respawn Entertainment and was published by Electronic Arts (EA). It features special characters or “Champions”, each with their own traits and skills used for combat.
Apex Legends let you choose with your team on how to make the best synergy with these champions, and with some having the advantage over the other, you have to rely on your skills and your squadmates to stay alive.
The gameplay is fast, with high mobility and rapid firing guns. Movement is essential in Apex Legends, and the champions cover just that.
The game requires decently strong devices, so a lot of old devices can’t run this game unfortunately. But with amazing graphics and gunplay, I think that’s a trade I’m willing to do. The game has:
- A standard battle royale mode
- A rotating arcade gamemode, including:
- Gun run: with each kill, you would get a new weapon, after you use every weapon, get the final kill with the melee weapon to win
- Arenas : a 3v3 team deathmatch mode
Apex Legends is definitely a must try when it comes to battle royales. It is free-to-play and available for both your android and iOS devices.
Fortnite Mobile
Good old Fortnite. This cartoonish game was first introduced in 2017 as a survival base-builder game. However, after the success of its battle royale mode, the developers switched to solely focusing on this mode and the other survival mode was put in a corner. The game was developed and published by Epic Games.
The premise of the game was just like any other battle royales, 100 players are dropped onto a map to hunt for loot and survive. Fortnite puts a twist to this, because you can also build FORTS. That’s what the name is for! And everything is bright and vibrant, unlike that of PUBG Mobile.
The game doesn’t feature special characters like that of Apex Legends, though they do introduce skins and pickaxes skins. Fortnite was also the start of a trend in battle royale games, mainly emotes. The gameplay is goofy in a good way, and to be frank that is the charm of Fortnite.
The game features quite a bit of game modes, which are:
- Battle royale: the standard mode where you fight to be the last man standing
- Save the world: the survival builder mode where you fight back hordes of enemies
- Creative: a map creator
- Lego: a special variant of Fortnite, where every character, enemies are made of Legos!
- Rocket Racing: a parody gamemode, took inspiration from Rocket League
- Festival: a kind of rhythm game
You might need a decent device to run the game smoothly, though it is not required. Fortnite Mobile is available for both Android and iOS and is free-to-play.
Rules of Survival and Cyber Hunter
With both games being developed and published by the same company NetEase, I will be taking both of them here. Rules of Survival if you have seen its gameplay, then you should know they take a massive inspiration from PUBG. That inspiration led them to some trouble as PUBG was trying to sue them for copyright.
However, the game really did something amazing though, as each round you can meet up to 120 players, and on a later update, up to 300 players. This is amazing as even now no other battle royale game could do it. Granted the game was really barebones and the assets were looking really cheap, credit where credit is due, this is still an amazing feat.
Rules of Survival meet its unfortunate but foreseeable end in 2022. But Cyber Hunter on the other hand, is still alive and well. It takes its own course for design and gameplay this time, and decides for a more futuristic theme. Cyber Hunter also scaled down their players this time, capping to the status quo of 100 players per match. The battle royal mode is also its only gamemode.
Rules of Survival is no longer available on all platforms. However, Cyber Hunter is available for both Android and iOS, and is free-to-play.
Who would know there were these many games with the premise like PUBG Mobile. To be honest, there are still a lot more out there, each with their own unique spice. So why are you still staying here? Go out and explore and if you do find some, make sure to leave a comment!
