Avengers' Thanos Crosses Into Fortnite in Battle Royale Bonus Round; 'PUBG' Names Map, 'Dota 2' Mode

If the initial imagery for Season 4 of “Fortnite: Battle Royale” made obvious reference to superhero couture, we now know why that was. Not only did update v4.0 arrive shortly after “Avengers: Infinity War” started rolling up box office records, but developer Epic Games had an official “Fortnite x Avengers” crossover waiting in the wings.

May 8 brought with it a new limited time mode called Infinity Gauntlet, named after an item central to the “Infinity War” story, and wielded by purple-skinned giant supervillain Thanos to devastating effect. Designed for solo players rather than teams, it generates one jewel-encrusted Infinity Gauntlet per game. Whoever finds it becomes Thanos, but wielding the power of the Infinity Gauntlet incites other players to take them down as quickly as possible.

The crossover is reminiscent of quiz app “HQ Trivia” and its “Ready Player One” tie-in ahead of that earlier movie’s debut.

Over in “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds,” the influential game’s more compact island environment — code-named Savage — returned under the name Sanhok on the PUBG Experimental Server, live between May 10 and May 14. It’s called Sanhok in reference to the Thai word for fun and the Filipino Tagalog word for chicken, presumably a nod to the game’s idiosyncratic congratulatory message, “winner winner chicken dinner.”

A full launch of Sanhok is “a couple of months away,” according to the PUBG news feed.

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Before Battle Royale games were in vogue, MOBAs were making waves in the video game industry, with “Dota 2” among its most popular examples. With an eye on the 2018 edition of its annual tournament, “Dota 2” is making a Battle Royale-style mode part of its fan package. Purchases of The International’s 2018 Battle Pass include access to The Underhollow, a “multi-team dungeon clash” that features teams of three instead of the customary five.

Trios are dropped into a labyrinth populated not only by “many other” three-player enemy squads but also monsters, marvels, and sources of gold and power-boosting experience points. Though the maze is also inhabited by a fearsome horned beast called Roshan the Immortal, the whole thing has an air of silliness about it — completely canonical silliness at that — as players hunt for a wheel of the world’s rarest cheese.

While not live at the time of the Battle Pass’s launch, The Underhollow is coming soon, according to an official “Dota 2” explainer.