5 best and 5 worst things about Fortnite
Fortnite came out of nowhere. While developer Epic Games had been famous for years as the makers of Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, and the Unreal Engine, the studio hadn't had a major success in a while. Their first new game in years, Fortnite: Save the World, was not well-received. Their star designer, Cliff Bleszinski, had left to go his own way. Where could Epic possibly go from here?
Simple: they went and made the biggest game on Earth.
Noting the phenomenal success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Epic chose to take their own stab at the battle royale genre, releasing a variation of Fortnite simply subtitled Battle Royale. And it did well. Very, very well. Fortnite is now one of the most popular games in the world, easily topping the charts at Twitch on a regular basis. Love it or hate it, this is a game that's going to have an impact on the entire industry, and sooner rather than later.
But that leaves a question: should you be a lover or a hater? There are plenty of reasons to be either. Here are five of the worst, and five of the best, aspects of this new sensation.
It doesn't take much to get into Battle Royale. Since it's free, you can just download it. And what's more, you can download it on just about anything. Thanks to Unreal Engine 4's incredibly flexible platform, you could get Fortnite on your high-end PC, your grandma's old clunker, your PlayStation 4, or even your phone. It's just everywhere, on everything. For free. There's a chance you downloaded it on some device just by reading this paragraph, without even meaning to.
Once installed, the game is dirt simple: Join a match. Run around. Collect items. Stay out of the storm. Don't die.
That's it. Knowing nothing else, you could play Fortnite and be decent enough at it. There are no classes to customize, no items to equip, no heroes with complex movesets to learn. Every single player, from a thousand-hour veteran to a complete noob, just glides down onto the island with nothing but a pickaxe and gets to work. The very definition of a low skill floor.
Simple: they went and made the biggest game on Earth.
Noting the phenomenal success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Epic chose to take their own stab at the battle royale genre, releasing a variation of Fortnite simply subtitled Battle Royale. And it did well. Very, very well. Fortnite is now one of the most popular games in the world, easily topping the charts at Twitch on a regular basis. Love it or hate it, this is a game that's going to have an impact on the entire industry, and sooner rather than later.
But that leaves a question: should you be a lover or a hater? There are plenty of reasons to be either. Here are five of the worst, and five of the best, aspects of this new sensation.
It doesn't take much to get into Battle Royale. Since it's free, you can just download it. And what's more, you can download it on just about anything. Thanks to Unreal Engine 4's incredibly flexible platform, you could get Fortnite on your high-end PC, your grandma's old clunker, your PlayStation 4, or even your phone. It's just everywhere, on everything. For free. There's a chance you downloaded it on some device just by reading this paragraph, without even meaning to.
Once installed, the game is dirt simple: Join a match. Run around. Collect items. Stay out of the storm. Don't die.
That's it. Knowing nothing else, you could play Fortnite and be decent enough at it. There are no classes to customize, no items to equip, no heroes with complex movesets to learn. Every single player, from a thousand-hour veteran to a complete noob, just glides down onto the island with nothing but a pickaxe and gets to work. The very definition of a low skill floor.
Epic knows a thing or two about the Unreal Engine. They make it, after all; Tim Sweeney himself has been working on it for over 20 years. That means they know how to make it sing, whether on console, PC, or even mobile. For Fortnite, this means that the game runs crisply no matter what device you're on, bringing its cartoonish art to life with nary a jitter or a skip. By contrast, its chief rival, PUBG, is known for its jankiness.
Polish matters. Just ask Blizzard Entertainment, who fill even their card game with slick animations, visual flair, and lots of secrets to click on. While other developers see it as a waste of time, polish can make a game inviting, friendly, and fun, even if it is mechanically similar to the competition. On the whole, Fortnite shares a whole lot in common with PUBG. One of the major elements that distinguishes it is the sheer technical, visual, and artistic virtuosity of the experience.
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Polish matters. Just ask Blizzard Entertainment, who fill even their card game with slick animations, visual flair, and lots of secrets to click on. While other developers see it as a waste of time, polish can make a game inviting, friendly, and fun, even if it is mechanically similar to the competition. On the whole, Fortnite shares a whole lot in common with PUBG. One of the major elements that distinguishes it is the sheer technical, visual, and artistic virtuosity of the experience.
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