Fortnite
| Fortnite | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Epic Games |
| Publisher(s) | Epic Games |
| Director(s) | Donald Mustard |
| Year of inception | 2017 |
| Platform(s) | PC Nintendo Switch PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X/S Mobile |
Fortnite, previously known as Fortnite: Battle Royale, is a third-person survival shooter game developed by Epic Games. The game was originally made solely by Epic, but they found the income from Gears of War just wasn't enough to fund the triple-A, island survival, battle royale game. After being partially taken over by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, Epic scrapped the battle royale concept since they didn't want to go head-to-head with PUBG. Instead, they made Fortnite into a zombie horde survival game, where you could build forts to survive — mixing Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, and The Walking Dead to make quite a fun experience.
Fortnite was released on July 21, 2017 on all platforms, but after initial low sales, Epic Games re-added the battle royale gamemode, which a separate team had been working on in case of this very scenario — and the game quickly accumulated over a million active players within the month. The zombie gamemode was retroactively named Fortnite: Save the World and cost $20, while the battle royale mode, Fortnite: Battle Royale, was made free — hoping that the 30 bucks players didn't spend on the game itself, would be used to buy V-Bucks; and loads of them at that.
History
Save the World
Like all games, Fortnite had a dark age. This involved something called Save the World, which plagued the game in its very early days, until Epic discovered the biggest trending game on Twitch, took inspiration (a simple copy-and-paste, but without cars), and managed to pull it out of the Dark Ages, skipping the Industrial Revolution, and experiencing a Golden Age like none other.
Season 3: The John Wick Uprising
These mystical beings called John Wick are the second coming of Jesus. John Wick's have the ability to pummel noobs into the ground by simply walking past them. The official Forknife Science Community have long speculated that the air pressure alone that resonates off of these fellas could cut a noob clean in half. Other abilities of John Wick include; aim assist, ability to change to a $30 skin at will, literally melt kids by staring at them with their laser eyes, whip out a rocket launcher whenever they desire, get a golden Scar right off the get go, don't even need a rocket to rocket ride, have 2000 health, devolve into a fetus, and hide inside a noob until the very end, and crawl out to evolve back into John Wick to get the Victory Royale. Their special ability is that it only takes one punch to eliminate all the noobs out of Tilted, and go over to Pleasant Park and do the same there. Fortnite historians have also confirmed that these John Wick sightings were actually the doings of the Reaper, as the John Wick outfit wasn't even in the game at this point.
Gameplay
Some people may experience seizures, one week old fetuses combusting, autistic fits, cardiac you're under arrest, brain tumours, or even toenail cancer from all the shock the game forces onto the player when they first jump out of the Battle Bus on a collision course with a Russian missile which misses its original target, the Twin Towers, and accidentally creates a second Twin Towers — making the first Quadruplet Towers.
This amount of trauma alone could leave any fetus scarred for the rest of their unborn life. Many noobs become paranoid, partly because they haven't realised that the bright glowing strap-ons that you can see from literally half-way across the map aren't ghosts, but are Dark Voyagers. Once their eyes adjust to the lights being emitted from Tilted Towers due to the amount of combat, they've already got over half the challenge, as the average number of players at Tilted Towers is about 3000 players — which doesn't make much sense as there are only hundred players in a single match. Next is to avoid going to Tilted Towers, because like the original World Trade Centre, you'll probably not survive. Another thing to remember is that if a gun has a purple rarity, it doesn't automatically mean it's a good gun — that's the exact case for the depressing and useless scoped assault rifle, making it equivalent to a blue automatic crossbow essentially.
Sneaking around with suppressed weapons is also ineffective, because crouching is louder than the casual sprint and jump technique adopted by literally anyone that has died to a shotgun. It can sure be annoying in gunfights when people are essentially bouncing around like it's some weird dystopian future where everyone looks like the characters from Lazy Town. Also, avoid combat with John Wicks, as it's impossible to win against these warriors who have the power of twenty noobs fused inside of them too make them a the ultimate Twitch streamer pro player — which is the reason why you have to knock off 2000 of their health before these Fortnite keyboard warriors need a revive from their squad fill noob teammates.
Marketing
Fortnite wasn't always a household name. Before news networks started calling it the 'main reason for school shootings in America' and 'the basis for anti-social behaviour in children', Epic would make commercials and trailers for the game like any other game or movie. Recently, billboards have popped up in Times Square for the release of each new Chapter and Season even though many that walk around there aren't interested in the game, nor even see the billboards due to focusing not getting hit by a car while crossing the road.
Fortnite merchandise has also taken hold of the market. Clothing, action-figures, and even Nerf guns modelled after the guns in the game are able to be purchased. Many children bring these Fortnite Nerf guns to school to show off to their friends, but end up getting shot by the School Safety Officer — not because he thought he was stopping a potential school-shooting, but because he wanted revenge from the night earlier as the kid was the one who stole his Victory Royale.
V-Buck economy
Upon entering a game of Fortnite, you'll instantly take into account the amount of people that waste money on the highest grossing currency in the world: V-Bucks. You might feel slightly shit compared to these players because of their aesthetic features, but don't worry, they're complete shit themselves. Just like COD Points, V-Bucks is just as tumorous; since it's profitable.
This is the main reason this game also excels compared to other games. Call of Duty: WW2 had DLC about the French — but no one likes the French, and the French don't even like the French, so it's a mystery how they thought this would be a good idea. Battlefield 1, well to be fair, no one has a clue what DLC they've put out. So, this is why a game with graphics more simple than that of the graphics on the Macintosh with an age rating of F for Fetus would somehow dominate the gaming market.
- Outfits
Outfits, also called 'skins', is how your character looks. The default skin, which is the free noob skin that shows others that you haven't spent money on the game, is what you start off with. Outfits cost different amounts of V-Bucks depending on how much time someone took to design them. A legendary skin costs 2000 V-Bucks, while a skin that took less than 10 minutes to make would be called Uncommon, and only cost 800. Most skins don't give any benefit to purchasing them, however, some skins that have bright lights on them can put you at a disadvantage if the game is during the night, while a skin that has mostly dark clothing can give you the upper hand during nighttime matches. Epic still insists that no outfits affect the outcome of the game, though.
- Pickaxes
Most pickaxes make sense like; axes, sledgehammers, and even literal pickaxes. Then there are just the weird ones like; a candy cane, an icicle, a beer keg, a pocket knife, or a Stormtrooper's electro staff. Cutting down trees, and bludgeoning people to death has never looked this cool, and you can do it too for 500-1500 V-Bucks.
- Gliders
Like all battle royale games, you have to get onto the battlefield somehow. In Fortnite, you do that by jumping out of the Battle Bus, and gliding down onto the island so that you can pick up a grey pistol while someone else gets a purple shotty and insta-kills you. Like the pickaxes, some gliders make sense like; parachutes, planes, and even the victory umbrella's so that you can pretend to be Mary Poppins. Gliders can cost between 500 and 1500 V-Bucks, but you only get to see them once per game, unlike your outfit and pickaxe that you can view for the majority of the round.
- Emotes
While in games like Halo and Call of Duty, you can t-bag on the dead bodies of those that you have killed, in Fortnite you can do the same, but for 200-800 V-Bucks, you can take that a step further and dance on the 12-year-old kid you just quickscoped. Like with YouTube, some songs and dances in Fortnite are copy-righted, meaning that if you don't own a physical CD with the song that your in-game character is dancing to, you cannot use that emote even though you just spent five bucks on it. Nintendo has employed this technique for years with their products with gamers that like to emulate — but nobody follows that rule; which is probably also why many, many war crimes are committed in Fortnite.