In the mid-nineteen-nineties, Koushun Takami was dozing on his futon on the island of Shikoku, Japan, when he was visited by an apparition: a maniacal schoolteacher addressing a group of students. "All right, class, listen up," Takami heard the teacher say. "Today, I'm going to have you all kill each other." Takami was in his twenties, and he had recently quit his job as a reporter for a local newspaper to become a novelist. As a literature student at Osaka University, he had started and abandoned several horror-infused detective stories.

Officially, the group is responsible for issuing fatwas – which are rulings by Islamic authorities – in Iraqi Kurdistan. However, other imams have come out against the ban.

"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," the video game spawning a new genre of battle royale games such as "Fortnite," is finally arriving on Sony's PlayStation 4. The PUBG Corporation said its game will arrive Dec. 7, with multiple preorder bonuses specific to Sony's platform. The standard version, which will include custom skins from the series "Uncharted" and a backpack from "The Last of Us," will sell for $29.99. Special editions starting at $59.99 will feature bonus currency, 20,000 battle points and a Winter Map Event Pass. Brian Corrigan, studio director for PUBG (pronounced "pub-gee"), said publisher PUBG Corporation had been working on a version of the game for PS4 since the beginning of the year. "We've wanted to do it forever," Corrigan said. "PUBG" took off in early 2017, helping to establish the video game genre battle royale, where 100 players compete until one is left standing.

If you were hoping PUBG Corp's lawsuit against Epic Games over Fortnite would be a knock-down drag-out fight to determine which battle royale game emerges triumphant... well, you'll be disappointed. The PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer has dropped the South Korean lawsuit, which alleged that Epic was imitating its interface and in-game items through Fortnite's Battle Royale mode. PUBG declined to explain the reason for the change of heart (we've asked Epic for comment), but there are a few potential candidates. For one, it probably wasn't going to accomplish much. Short of securing an outright ban on Fortnite, a successful lawsuit wasn't likely to slow Epic down --it might have obtained money and some cosmetic changes, but not much more.

Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is in an unenviable position at the moment. His namesake game, PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds was the surprise hit of 2017, going from being an obscure work-in-progress game in Steam's Early Access section to racking up over $60 million in sales in mere months, averaging 2 million daily players on PC and getting a console port via the Xbox One -- all before it hit version 1.0. By all accounts, it looked like the game's continued success was guaranteed. Then Fortnite: Battle Royale happened. This week, Fortnite developer Epic Games announced that in just nine months time, its free-to-play spin on battle royale had accrued 125 million players.

According to the Korean Times, a lawsuit has been filed by PUGB Corp, a subsidiary of the publisher Bluehole. It alleges that Fortnite bears many similarities to its own title, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which was launched several months earlier. PUBG claims an injunction was filed on Friday with the Seoul central district court against Epic Games Korea, the local office of Epic Games, a game publisher and developer based in Cary, North Carolina. Fortnite was originally released last July as a co-operative zombie-shooting game. However, after the success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, in which 100 players fight each other across a shrinking environment to be the last person standing, Epic Games released a new version of its game entitled Fortnite: Battle Royale, which features the same premise.

If you weren't already one of the 45 million people playing Fortnite, last week was when you heard about it. The game--which is really two games, one about building things while killing monsters and surviving as a group, the other about building things and killing each other--is now enough of a cultural smash that the nongaming press has decided it's time to explain it to its uninitiated readers. For the most part, it's identified why the game is such a hit--while overlooking its debt to the many, many similar games and industry practices that came before it. The free-to-play game, originally released in 2017 by Epic Games, has a kid-friendly color palette and (for a shooter game) a notable lack of graphic excess, making it a relatively safe entry point into the world of video games. In its more popular "battle royale" mode--the one you may have seen Drake playing--approximately 100 players travel via hot air balloon–lifted school bus to an island with quirky location names and a vaguely post-apocalyptic vibe.

Pro gamers Mike Carr and Jonna Mae, whose online monikers are "Di3sel" and "MissesMae," are Turtle Beach-sponsored gamers. Mae, at right, wears a Turtle Beach Stealth 600 wireless headset for Xbox One. Video game headset maker Turtle Beach is cashing in on the growing interest in hit online video games such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. That's helped Turtle Beach solidify its spot as the leading headset maker in North America with 46% of the market, up from about 39% in the first three months of 2017, CEO Juergen Stark said Wednesday citing data from The NPD Group. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), which rose to prominence last year, and Fortnite, currently riding a wave of mass popularity, are both online multiplayer "battle royale" games in which players strive to be the last one standing.

You know a video game has made it when ITV daytime programme This Morning posts on its Facebook page asking parents if their kids are addicted. You can be doubly sure when that post attracts almost 60,000 comments. In this case the game is Fortnite: Battle Royale, a bright, brash multiplayer shooter. It was released last year, and is now one of the biggest online games out there. With more than 40m players worldwide, the chances are either your children or their friends are already passionate fans.

"Games as a Service" has become a buzzword in recent months, especially in the wake of November's Star Wars Battlefront II lootbox controversy. The lootbox association has also tainted the term, tying it inextricably to what's at best seen as a "necessary evil" in the industry. But the basic idea behind Games as a Service is a net positive in theory: The games you like get expanded upon after release. It's what people liked about MMOs, but for all genres--the silver lining to this digital future, with its Day One patches and all the other stuff players like to grumble about. So let's celebrate the games that got it right.