In recent times, the term has been used more generally to refer to any fight involving large numbers of people who are not organized into factions.
Outside sports, the term battle royale has taken on a new meaning in the 21st century, from Koushun Takami's 1999 Japanese dystopian novel Battle Royale and its 2000 film adaptation of the same name, referring to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment also known as death games and killing games, where a select group of people is instructed to hunt and kill one another in a large arena until there is only one survivor.
In 18th century England, bare-knuckle boxing conducted according to Jack Broughton's rules included matches involving eight fighters.
Frederick Douglass wrote that such distractions, as well as the consumption of alcohol, were "among the most effective in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection.
The three-ring, sixty-wrestler events consisted of all sixty wrestlers parading to the ring (usually without formal introductions to save time) and beginning to fight at the bell.
The winners of the four World War 3 battles royal were Randy Savage, The Giant, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash.
[5] The term "battle royale" has since been used to refer to a fictional narrative genre where a select group of people is instructed to kill one another until there is one survivor.
[5][6] Battle Royale set out the basic rules of the genre, including players being forced to kill each other until there is a single survivor and the need to scavenge for weapons and items.
[7] There are a number of popular battle royale video games, films,[5] manga, anime,[8] and visual novels.
[11][5] Popular examples of battle royale games include PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (2017), Fortnite Battle Royale (2017), Rules of Survival (2017), Garena Free Fire (2017), Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018), Apex Legends (2019), Call of Duty: Warzone (2020), and Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (2020).