Fortnite (online video game)

Fortnite is an online multiplayer video game that combines elements of the shooter-survival genre with exploration and world-building. The game has several different modes, with the most popular being the free-to-play Battle Royale mode. In Battle Royale, one hundred players skydive onto a virtual island where they fight it out to be the last one standing. Other modes include a space where players can build whatever they want and a survival mode where players must fight off hordes of zombie-like creatures. Following its introduction in 2017, Fortnite became very popular among gamers, attracting hundreds of millions of users over the years. It has also earned billions of dollars in revenue for its creator, Epic Games.

Background

Epic Games was founded in 1991 by computer programmer Tim Sweeney, who ran the company out of his bedroom in Baltimore, Maryland. In the mid-1990s, Sweeney and his team of programmers began developing a game engine they hoped would revolutionize 3D graphics. The engine, called the Unreal Engine, debuted with 1998’s first-person shooter game Unreal. Epic would not only use the engine for its own games but allowed its use by other developers for a licensing fee. By the 2000s, the Unreal Engine had become the most widely used engine in the video game industry.

After the success of Unreal, Epic shifted the focus of the game’s sequels from single-player toward multiplayer online games. The company also began developing big-name titles for consoles such as the Xbox and Xbox 360. In 2006, Epic released Gears of War, a third-person shooter set on an alien world that became the company’s biggest hit to that time. In a third-person shooter, the player can see and move their character on screen, as opposed to a first-person shooter, in which the player only sees a weapon that can be aimed and fired. By 2011, the company had released two sequels to Gears of War as well as several other titles.

Overview

In December 2011, Epic Games announced that it was developing a new third-person shooter called Fortnite: Save the World. The game is set in a world where most of humanity had disappeared and the survivors battle zombie-like creatures known as husks. Players team up in groups of four to scavenge for items and weapons, build structures for defense, and complete quests, all while fighting off the undead. Although Epic Games never officially revealed the origin of the name Fortnite, theories suggest it could be a reference to the word “fortnight,” an old English term for a period of two weeks. In the game, players have to survive the zombies for fourteen days. Another theory suggests that name comes from the concept of knights battling monsters and building defensive forts.

Although the company had announced the game, programmers were still working on the gameplay and faced major hurdles before it would be ready to be released. As they attempted to resolve these problems, Epic Games decided to shift its business strategy to include more PC, online, and mobile gaming. Work on Fortnite was pushed back in 2013, delaying the game until summer 2017. Upon its release, Fortnite: Save the World was met with criticism from reviewers and gamers alike. Many did not like its cartoon-like graphics, and its storyline was seen as bland and incomplete. However, players did like its item-scavenging and world-building systems.

In September 2017, six weeks after the game launched, Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode debuted. Battle Royale, named after a Japanese novel and film about a group of high schoolers forced to fight to the death on a deserted island, combines the game’s scavenging and world-building strengths with colorful graphics and a fun style of gameplay. In this mode, up to one hundred players airdrop onto an island from the floating “battle bus,” a blue school bus tethered to a hot-air balloon. Players do not land with any weapons and carry only a pickaxe. To survive, they must scavenge for weapons by opening treasure chests, getting supply drops, looting defeated enemies, or finding the piñata-like “supply llama.” Gamers can use the pickaxe to destroy buildings and other structures, loot the wood, metal, and brick from the rubble, and use that to construct their own fortifications. After a certain period, the island is hit by a deadly storm that grows larger until the surviving players are confined to an ever-shrinking safe zone. Players caught in the storm suffer damage until they can reach this safe zone. Gamers can work in teams or battle on their own. The game continues until only one survivor is left.

Players have the ability to customize the look of their characters and can perform several signature dance moves on the battlefield. Battle Royale mode is free-to-play, although players can purchase a battle pass that gives them several in-game bonuses. In addition, players can buy special items, dance moves, and costumes using a form of in-game currency called V-bucks. Gamers can earn V-bucks by completing missions or by purchasing them with real-world money. As the game grew in popularity it began to add several collaborations with other franchises, including Star Wars and Marvel. Battle Royale is available on home consoles, Windows and Mac operating systems, and some mobile devices. In contrast, Save the World is pay-to-play and is only available on Xbox, PlayStation, and Mac and Windows operating systems.

In 2018 Epic Games released Fortnite’s Creative mode, in which players have free run of their own island where they can invite their friends. As the title suggests, gamers can create their own structures and customizable adventures in this mode. In May 2020, the company introduced the experimental Party Mode, a combat-free zone where players can take part in a variety of mini-games and listen to concerts from real-life entertainers. Like Battle Royale, Creative and Party modes are free-to-play and available on the same platforms. In 2023 Epic Games announced Unreal Editor for Fortnite, an expanded suite of creative tools allowing users to create their own deeply customizable games and modes within the Fortnite game engine. That year also saw Epic introduce Lego, Rocket Racing, and Festival (rhythm) modes.

Beginning in the 2020s, Epic's determination to fight what it deemed were anticompetitive practices by giving players choices in their ability to make payments within apps put it at odds with technology giants like Apple. For several years, Apple removed Fortnite and the company's other games from its app store in response to Epic's challenge of its proprietary payment policy.

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