Here are the top comparisons of each game :
10. General Performance & Animation
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Epic Games
It has to be said: PUBG - considering the sheer size and scope of its reach, ambitions and money taken so far - really should run flawlessly. Its 1.0 update on PC saw the biggest boost to general playability so far, implementing an ultra-cool Theatre/replay mode and touching up performance across the board - though it's far from perfect.
Symptomatic of so many users' individual setups being customisable and different per person, there are endless guides geared towards how to "spec your rig" into getting PUBG into the best working condition. Even then, users report on a daily basis as to frame rate drops and crashes, as one fix for a certain group can be disastrous for the rest.
That's all par for the course on PC, but even over on Xbox One - where hardware specs are locked, and only two variations exist if you extend to an Xbox One X's capabilities - PUBG struggles to maintain even 30fps, especially when in a vehicle or engaging multiple players.
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Bluehole
Over to Fortnite, and clearly Epic have targeted performance as a major boon to playability. Noting how millions of users were having trouble getting PUBG off the ground, Fortnite loads far faster, has had demonstrably more work put into movement animations, and holds steady at 60fps even during the most frenetic encounters.
There's no contest here, though I hope some day there will be.
9. Feel Of Shooting/Weapons
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Bluehole
Onto shooting, and even Epic themselves have admitted they didn't nail the feel of shooting in Fortnite. Being the game was never built to handle these pixel-precise showdowns of headshots and long-distance kills (Fortnite was about surviving zombie hordes and crafting first), they're now carrying out multiple "Shooting Tests" in limited time windows, all to really scrutinise things like first shot damage, recoil and bullet drop.
What will emerge on the other end should hopefully remedy the problem, as right now, shooting in Fortnite does come with a nice sense of impact and the weapons do feel varied, it just needs a certain weight behind movement to be truly reliable.
PUBG on the other hand, is as militaristic and precise as they come. In theory (when the frame rate is strong and lag is eliminated), you can dodge a bullet by a millimetre, alongside killing someone with a rifle from across the world, providing you accounted for the drop.
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Epic Games
Battlegrounds' weapons handle with all the clicks and clacks of their real-world counterparts; a true testament to creator Brendan Greene's own love of firearms. Fortnite-first players have lamented the more "stripped down" feel of firing a gun in PUBG, but that base simplicity forces you to really analyse your pickups - a sensation that only reinforces how immaculately all those weapons handle.
8. Map Quality/Density & Variety Of Biomes
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Bluehole
Up until recently, both games were locked to a specific map - Fortnite's nameless expanse of greenery, peppered with the occasional township, dockyard or smattering of houses, and PUBG's Erangel, an eastern European warzone that feels like a Google Map screen grab brought to life.
In 2018, Epic saw fit to bolster Fortnite's offering with additional details - though they were "plugged in" to the existing map. Things like a towering cityscape goes some way into innovating genre-wise by forcing players into applying tactics to a vertical plane, but it's nothing on PUBG's Miramar: A sprawling, mostly open-air desert that rewards slow-crawl gameplay, sniper rifles and relentless usage of cover.
Biome-wise, Fortnite will see you go from forests to industrial factories, cities to underground mines - but there's not enough of it. No individual section of the map feels especially well thought out - not in the sense of how a multiplayer team would design an online play-space, anyway.
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Epic Games
PUBG certainly has the same issue to some degree, but simply because its gameplay is more precise, contemplative and methodical, the majority of buildings interspersed with the occasional standout location (like either map's schools or the Hacienda del Patron) feel like they compliment gameplay, rather than restrict it.
Fortnite's biome assortment is more varied across a smaller space, but it falls short of anything close to "good level design".
7. Loot Systems & Clarity Of Upgrades/Inventory
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Epic Games
Onto one of the most integral mechanics in the game: Their loot systems. Both require dropping into massive maps with either nothing on you or a pickaxe, before scavenging all nearby areas to get armour and weapons.
In PUBG, this gets split into what feels like an overwhelming amount of categories, with many of them being ultimately pointless. You've got shoes, shirts, t-shirts and hats right next to tiered police riot masks, armour vests and work boots. The latter will contribute to an overall armour stat, but it's one you'll have to figure out the ramifications of by tracking your health drop the next time you're shot.
The same goes for weapons. Is a UMP better than an Uzi in a straight showdown? They're both sub-machine guns, but you'll have to do the research yourself. (Spoilers: UMP every time).
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Bluehole
In Fortnite, all of this is streamlined. Weapons come in four "rarity" colours outside of grey (blue, green, purple and gold), with immediately noticeable differences in damage and attachments. PUBG asks that you figure out and use attachments separately - something that you'll feel the benefit of, but the entire process of navigating loot and your inventory in general is handled far better in Epic's game.
In Fortnite, your health and armour stats are bright green and blue, on screen and clear, with weapon icons shining a colour representative of damage that can be dealt. In PUBG, you're left with arbitrary numbers where you can assume the higher the better, but it's all left to trial and error.
6. Accessibility & Learning Curve
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Epic Games
PUBG is not a "nice" game - it's not designed for anyone other than a player who can invest the time into figuring out its various machinations, tactics and gameplay nuances. There's no tutorial, firing range or easy-access way to try out the variety of weapons on offer - nor a breakdown of armour tiers or even when you're visible to other players, based on distance.
Both games share pre-match lobbies where you can get your gun off (provided you find one quick enough), but Fortnite also forgoes any "training" in favour of literally dropping you onto the map. The latter manages to edge the accessibility metric though - on consoles anyway - by having far better load times and a kill-cam.
When taken out you can watch other players, learn their methods and see how close you were to taking them out instead. PUBG on PC now has this feature, but on consoles it's a "Oh... that happened" realisation of watching your now-lifeless body and knowing you need to repeat the arduous process of loading up another match.
As such, Fortnite tends to "onboard" players a lot better than PUBG. The former's learning curve is immediately surmountable next time you drop in, and you'll be armour and weapon'd up in seconds, ready to return fire.
Contrastingly, PUBG's cold exterior can still feel like playing a modded version of a game you never owned; one the rest of the world has mastered, and you're just catching up. You'll get there with perseverance, but Fortnite has at least something of a hand waving you through the door.
5. Match Flow/Intensity
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Bluehole
Speaking of perseverance, as a player/individual you can decide how much time you have to dedicate to a one-off match or afternoon of gaming. PUBG's bouts - providing you don't get taken out in the first few moments - tend to be half hour-long affairs, its maps scattering players far and wide, meaning encounters are rare, but deadly when they do happen.
You can routinely go 20 minutes with the overall player count hovering around the 70s, amping up the tension as thoughts of other players' loadouts getting better than yours increases - not to mention the encroaching sensation that there's always someone behind you, above or nearby. You're only as safe as your personal concoction of confidence and cover, and that's a compelling feeling to get lost in.
Fortnite is the opposite of this, with 60% of the playerbase falling within the first 5-10 minutes. Easily identifiable manmade structures on the map are often flocked to, and the firefights within are a great place to practice, though it means the match overall has a "middle third" that's, honestly, quite boring.
Whether down to hearing a car in the distance or a door swing open below your formerly safe space in the corner of a building's top floor, PUBG's militaristic sterility reinforces its intensity, and the map sizes mean firefights seldom wipe out meaningful numbers of players at once.
4. Control Schemes & Utilisation
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Bluehole
If you're anything of a self-identifying PC gamer, you'll already be au fait with your limbs resembling those of Squiddly Diddly; darting to and fro across a number of inputs, button shortcuts and mouse wheel options to control a character's full array of abilities.
For PUBG on PC, this works a treat (after an hour or so), giving you a full repertoire of moves from leaning around corners to swapping ammo types, cycling through seats in a vehicle to hopping between perspectives when running or shooting.
All of these abilities are also on Xbox, using a surprisingly comprehensible series of "hold this, then this" combinations to replicate PUBG's "larger sibling" PC counterpart. This really works far better than it has any right to (just look at the game's controller map) and represents a tangible real-world learning curve for you as a player to get your head around.
In Fortnite, your options are stripped WAY down. Aside from running and gunning, you've got a crouch and... that's it. No prone, no leaning - nothing outside of base combat, other than the game's construction suite, where you can turn pieces of the environment into towers, ramps and more.
It's another win for PUBG, simply because all of its wider moves and tactics are available from moment one, you just have to get used to them. Fortnite can occasionally feel too limited when push comes to shove, and across long play sessions with the two, ultimately this drags it down.
3. Array Of Tactical Options
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Bluehole
As you'll come to understand with PUBG, all of its best-executed aspects come to reinforce one another. The cold, harsh environment encourages tactical play; the scattering of weapons means you need to play to their individual strengths; that complex control scheme means you'll certainly not kill someone by pulling the pin on a grenade and elegantly lean-throwing it around a corner on your first round.
That said, this is where Fortnite's building mechanics come in, as this is the most obvious "tactical advantage" you can have over other players.
Say the storm is closing in, building a small fort to house yourself means you can funnel players into specific kill-spots - especially if you have an array of traps to put down. Even erecting a wall in the direction of incoming fire will shield you, and players have used this latter move to advance on far-away opponents to close distance and get a kill.
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Epic Games
Complex buildings can backfire if the storm swallows you whole before you can get out, though it leads to brilliant final five showdowns where each player has their own Worms-style embattlement, firing grenades and rockets to and fro, hoping to hit home or at least destroy the foundations.
Overall, PUBG has more "to it". From playing the angles game around any outcrop of land to having a car chase across the map, Fortnite does ease-of-access and building VERY well, but it's nothing on a well-rounded game of PUBG.
2. Potential Mastery Of The Game/Longevity
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Bluehole
We've covered tactics and loot components, but you have to ask the question of any online game: Can I get reliably good at X game?
The answer is yes, but there's nuance to how you get there.
A good Fortnite player i.e. someone who can guarantee a position in the top 10, is either a player relying on "the bush method" (hiding in the game's array of foliage that covers a crouched character head-to-toe), or someone who dives into encounters and has the skill to take on all comers. There's very little in between, and both methods often converge in that final five "build stage", as a smaller storm zone forces players to face one another.
In PUBG, tactics change every time, simply because of the amount of options at your disposal. Vehicles change up the pace of a match hugely, affording you the time to scavenge nearby areas for longer, knowing you can outrun the storm later on. Putting the time into PUBG means you learn the weapons, how to fire accurately, how to conserve ammo and pick your shots - essentially, how to survive.
Fortnite's rather "fluffy" aesthetic doesn't bely a tactician's mind - its as frenetic and fun to hop into as it is to look at or spectate. Once you've won there's no questioning of, "Okay, but next time I want to try THIS", whereas PUBG invites experimentation with a focused toolset, rewarding you through gameplay and a higher final placement.
1. Victory Screens/Does Victory Feel Earned?
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Bluehole
Okay, so here's the thing: The actual ending of both games - the culmination, the fanfare, the denouement - is terrible. Both games throw up what feels like a first-pass victory screen that flat-out tells you either "Victory Royale!" or "Winner winner, chicken dinner!" with nothing else, before you immediately realise the only recourse is to play again.
There's very little visual payoff outside of indulging in your own feeling of celebration, and considering the genre is predicated on "Who can survive?/What will you do?!", actually getting there can feel pretty off-putting, like the destination wasn't worth the climb.
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Epic Games
Granted, the climb is the game, and it's here where everything converges into my final point: Does winning a game of PUBG or Fortnite feel earned?
In both cases, yes, but where Fortnite trades on power-ups, makeshift fortresses and legendary weapons, PUBG boils all that down to base gameplay. You can up your chances of surviving in a shootout with a better armour stat or a bullet-deflecting frying pan strapped to your back, but a headshot is a headshot.
Play PUBG well, retreat and strike where necessary, and that sense of reward will directly pay off your primal cortex. Those were your reaction times, your happenstance finding of the right weapon and your ability to line up the final shot to snatch victory from the one-in-thousands chance of defeat.
There's nothing else like it, and although technical hiccups continue to get in the way, PUBG is the better game than Fortnite - it just needs more time to iron out any remaining technical kinks.