Introduction
Fortnite is an online video game and game platform developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in seven distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same
General gameplay and game engine: Fortnite Battle Royale, a battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid tower defense-shooter and survival game in which up to four players fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas; Lego Fortnite, an open world game collection divided between survival game Lego Fortnite Odyssey and social game Lego Fortnite Brick Life; Rocket Racing, a racing game; Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game; and Fortnite Ballistic, a tactical first-person shooter currently in early access. All game modes except Save the World are free-to-play.
Save the World and Battle Royale were released in 2017 as early access titles, while Creative was released on December 6, 2018. While the Save the World and Creative versions have been successful for Epic Games, Fortnite Battle Royale in particular became an overwhelming success and a cultural phenomenon, drawing more than 125 million players in less than a year, earning hundreds of millions of dollars per month. Fortnite as a whole generated $9 billion in gross revenue up until December 2019, and it has been listed among the greatest games of all time.
Game modes
- Fortnite: Savhttps://influencergonewild.xyz/khaby-lame/e the World is a player-versus-environment cooperative game, with four players collaborating towards a common objective on various missions while avoiding the effects of an encroaching cataclysmic storm. The players take the role of commanders
- of home base shelters, collecting resources, saving survivors, and defending equipment that helps to either collect data on the storm or to push back the storm. From missions, players are awarded a number of in-game items, which include hero characters, weapon and trap schematics, and survivors, all of which can be leveled up through gained experience to improve their attributes.
- Fortnite Battle Royale is a player-versus-player game for up to 100 players, allowing one to play alone, in a duo, or in a squad (usually consisting of three or four players). Weaponless players airdrop from a “Battle Bus” that crosses the game’s map, and then scavenge for weapons, items, and resources while trying to stay alive and to attack and eliminate other players. Over the course of a round, the safe area of the map shrinks down in size due to an incoming toxic storm; players outside that threshold take damage and can be eliminated if they fail to quickly evacuate.
This forces remaining players into tighter spaces and encourages player encounters until the last player or team is alive. Alongside the main Battle Royale mode, three additional modes are also available: Zero Build, which removes building elements, Reload, which allows players to respawn after dying for a set amount of time, and OG, which re-introduces the classic Chapter 1 map and weapons. Furthermore, “Party Royale” served as a social space, which hosted various concert events.
Development history
Fortnite began from an internal game jam at Epic Games following the publishing of Gears of War 3 around 2011. Though it was not initially one of the developed titles during the jam, the concept of merging the construction game genre, representing games like Minecraft and Terraria, and shooter games arose, leading to the foundation of Fortnite. Development
of Fortnite slowed due to several issues, including switching from the Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4, a deeper role-playing game approach to extend the life of the game, and a switch of art style from a dark theme to a more cartoonish style. Further, Epic was looking to get into the games as a service model, and brought in Chinese publisher Tencent to help; Tencent took a large stake in Epic as part of this, leading to the departure of several executives, including Cliff Bleszinski, who had been a key part of Fortnite‘s development. Fortnite‘s approach was changed to be Epic’s testbed for games as a service, and further slowed the development.
Epic was able to prepare to release Fortnite as a paid early access title in July 2017, with plans to release it as free-to-play sometime in 2019 while gaining feedback from players to improve the game. With the release of Fortnite Battle Royale, the player-versus-environment mode was distinguished as “Save the World”. Ultimately, Epic opted to release Save the World as a premium title, bringing it out of early access on June 29, 2020.
Fortnite Battle Royale (2017–2018)
Near the same time that Epic released Fortnite into early access, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds had become a worldwide phenomenon, having sold over 5 million copies three months from its March 2017 release, and drawing strong interest in the battle royale genre. Epic recognized that with the Fortnite base game, they could also do a battle royale mode, and rapidly developed their own version atop Fortnite in about two months. By September 2017, Epic was ready to release this as a second mode from “Save the World” in the paid-for earlier access, but then later decided to release it as a free
game, Fortnite Battle Royale, supported with microtransactions. This version quickly gained players, with over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release, and leading Epic to create separate teams to continue the Fortnite Battle Royale development apart from the Save the World version, outside of common engine elements and art assets. This allowed Fortnite Battle Royale to expand to other platforms otherwise not supported by Save the World, including iOS and Android mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
Fortnite Creative (2018–2023)
A creative sandbox mode launched on December 6, 2018, synchronized with the start of season 7 of Fortnite Battle Royale. Each player has access to a private, persistent island on which they construct buildings and add and manipulate objects as desired. Players are able to invite friends to this island and participate in unofficial games such as race tracks or jumping
courses. Only players who purchased the battle pass initially received their own island, but a week later, on December 13, players who did not purchase it received access to the game mode for free.
Fortnite Experiences (2023)
In March 2023, Epic released the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), a standalone editor for Windows. UEFN allows creators to use the Unreal Editor with features of Unreal Engine 5 and Fortnite assets in developing new modes within the Fortnite Creative mode; this mode was called “Creative 2.0”.
In October 2023, Epic redesigned the main Fortnite client to present Epic’s own various modes as well as the numerous creative modes as part of Fortnite Experiences, comparable to Roblox in presentation. This was followed by the introduction of three new Epic-developed modes for the game in December 2023: Lego Fortnite, a survival game developed in conjunction with The Lego Group, Rocket Racing, an arcade-style
driving game developed by Psyonix, and Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game developed by Harmonix. Each mode was introduced as free-to-play, interfacing with the game’s battle pass system, and offering new rewards associated with those modes. One recent Epic experience features music by Daft Punk
Numerous improvements in UEFN were announced in March 2024, including the addition of Unreal Engine’s MetaHuman character rendering technology, and more assets from Lego, Rocket Racing, and Fall Guys. Epic also stated their intent to have future Fortnite Battle Royale seasons starting in late 2025 to be developed in UEFN.[38]
Reception
The Save the World mode achieved over one million players by August 2017, just prior to the release of Battle Royale.
Fortnite Battle Royale became a significant financial success for Epic Games, leading them to separate the teams between Save the World and Battle Royale to provide better support for both modes. Within two weeks of release, over 10 million players had
played the mode, and by June 2018, just after the Nintendo Switch release, had reached 125 million players. Revenue from Fortnite Battle Royale during the first half of 2018 had been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars per month,with total 2018 revenue estimated at $2.4 billion by analysis firm SuperData Research. Total revenue for Fortnite reached more than $9 billion by the end of 2019.
There has also been growing concern over Fortnite Battle Royale‘s draw toward young children, emphasized with the release of the mobile client. Parents and teachers had expressed concern that students are being distracted and drawn away from school work due to playing Fortnite.Concerns have also been raised about the impact that playing a game involving repeated depictions of gun violence may have on young children.
Awards
In 2017, the game was nominated for “Best Co-op Game” by PC Gamer,and for “Best Spectator Game” by IGN. In 2018, the game won the award for Best Ongoing Game by PC Gamer and IGN, the latter of which nominated it for “Best Nintendo Switch Game”, “Best Mobile Game”, and “Best Action Game”.
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | The Game Awards 2017 | Best Multiplayer | Nominated | [63] |
| 2018 | 16th Visual Effects Society Awards | Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project (A Hard Day’s Night) | Nominated | [64][65] |
| 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards | Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay | Nominated | [66][67] | |
| SXSW Gaming Awards 2018 | Excellence in Multiplayer | Nominated | [68][69] | |
| Excellence in Gameplay | Nominated | |||
| 14th British Academy Games Awards | Evolving Game | Nominated | [70][71] | |
| Multiplayer | Nominated | |||
| 2018 Webby Awards | People’s Voice Award for Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game | Won | [72] | |
| Game Critics Awards 2018 | Best Ongoing Game | Won | [73][74] | |
| Develop Awards | Best Animation | Nominated | [75][76] | |
| Teen Choice Awards | Choice Videogame | Won | [77][78] | |
| BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards | Best Game (Fortnite Battle Royale) | Won | [79] | |
| Golden Joystick Awards 2018 | Best Competitive Game | Won | [80][81][82] | |
| Mobile Game of the Year | Nominated | |||
| Ultimate Game of the Year (Fortnite Battle Royale) | Won | |||
| The Game Awards 2018 | Best Multiplayer Game | Won | [83][84] | |
| Best Mobile Game | Nominated | |||
| Best Ongoing Game | Won | |||
| Best Esports Game | Nominated | |||
| Gamers’ Choice Awards | Fan Favorite Game | Won | [85] | |
| Fan Favorite Multiplayer Game | Won | |||
| Fan Favorite eSports Game | Won | |||
| Fan Favorite Battle Royale Game | Won | |||
| Fan Favorite eSports League Format (Community Skirmishes) | Won | |||
| 2019 | 22nd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards | Online Game of the Year | Won | [86][87] |
| 15th British Academy Games Awards | Evolving Game | Won | [88][89] | |
| Mobile Game | Nominated | |||
| Famitsu Awards | Excellence Prize | Won | [90] | |
| 2019 Webby Awards | Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game | Won | [91] | |
| Game Critics Awards 2019 | Best Ongoing Game | Nominated | [92] | |
| Golden Joystick Awards 2019 | Still Playing | Nominated | [93][94] | |
| eSports Game of the Year | Won | |||
| The Game Awards 2019 | Best Ongoing Game | Won | [95][96] | |
| Best Community Support | Nominated | |||
| Best eSports Game | Nominated | |||
| Best eSports Event (Fortnite World Cup) | Nominated | |||
| 2020 | 16th British Academy Games Awards | Evolving Game | Nominated | [97][98] |
| 2020 Kids’ Choice Awards | Favorite Video Game | Nominated | [99] | |
| The Game Awards 2020 | Best Ongoing Game | Nominated | [100] | |
| Best Community Support | Nominated | |||
| Best eSports Game | Nominated | |||
| Best of Galaxy Store Awards | Game of the Year 2020 | Won | [101] | |
| 2021 | 2021 Kids’ Choice Awards | Favorite Video Game | Nominated | [102] |
| 11th Streamy Awards | Brand Engagement | Won | [103] | |
| 2022 | The Game Awards 2022 | Best Community Support | Nominated | [104] |
| Best Ongoing Game | Nominated | |||
| 2023 | The Game Awards 2023 | Best Ongoing Game | Nominated | [105] |
| 2024 | 20th British Academy Games Awards | Evolving Game | Nominated | [106][107] |
| EE Game of the Year | Nominated | |||
| Equinox Latam Game Awards | Battle Royale | Won | [108][109] | |
| Ongoing Game | Nominated | |||
| The Game Awards 2024 | Best Ongoing Game | Nominated | [110] | |
| Best Community Support | Nominated | |||
| 2025 | The Game Awards 2025 | Best Ongoing Game | Pending | [111] |
| Best Community Support | Pending | |||
| Golden Joystick Awards | Still Playing Award – PC and Console | Nominated | [112] |
For more
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