The PUBG Fortnite battle continued in dramatic fashion this week as both games reached a 20 million milestone almost simultaneously. For PUBG it was 20 millions copies sold and for Fortnite it was 20 million players.

These milestones are just fuel for the rivalry that has developed between the two games. As arguably the two biggest players in the emerging Battle Royale genre, PUBG and Fortnite were destined to be rivals from the start.  

Like any good rivalry, it isn’t just happenstance that has fueled these two. The gloves first came off shortly after the release of Fortnite Battle Royale. Bluehole, creators of PUBG, released a statement claiming that  “Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known,” and stating that they would be contemplating further action.

The statement opened a whole can of worms and ignited a debate about whether games could be too similar to one another. The argument might sound juvenile on the surface, but Bluehole worked closely with Fortnite’s parent company, Epic Games, during the development process and some have reasoned that Epic may have stolen ideas or concepts from Bluehole during that time.

Since then, the rivalry between the two games has continued to grow. They’ve gone back and forth with milestone after milestone. Fortnite was first to arrive on consoles, PUBG broke the record for most concurrent players on Steam. PUBG, made it to 7 million players in four months, Fortnite did it in two. Back and forth and back and forth. 

The games are almost constantly associated with one another and it’s rare when they’re not uttered in the same breath.

PUBG is set to arrive on consoles next month as an Xbox exclusive. Then it’ll likely be a race to the biggest milestone of them all: Which game will be first to officially leave Early Access?