This is a blog post that I’ve been wanting to do for some time now and almost typed up something even before I started writing this blog.  Fortnite is a game that just exploded and is probably the most popular and unpopular game out there right now.  For someone who works with mostly non-gamers it has been interesting to hear just the shear amount of people that are currently talking about the game.  This is why I felt it was a good time to write my take on the game, from someone who has probably put a few hundred hours into the game now.  Unfortunately, I have not played the Save the World mode yet but hope to in the near future.

The Good:  There is so much that this game has done right.  First and foremost, the thing that has really made this game take off in the way that it has is the cross play.  You can play this on Xbox, PS4, Switch, PC, and mobile.  This game can be played by just about every person that has access to any sort of technology.  That is what has made this game really take off in the way that it has.  Being able to play with my friends who are on PlayStation, and Xbox has been great for me because I used to not really be able to play many games with them before.  Since there is also just so many people playing the game it makes it very easy to just hop into a game and not have to wait forever for a match like some other battle royales.  The next big thing that Fortnite has done right is with updates.  They are putting out updates at least twice a week and sometimes doing things that are updating constantly.  For a game to do something like that had really been unheard of up to this point.  Some of the updates even completely change up the map.  The variety in Fortnite is what I believe keeps people playing the game and as long as they continue to big things with it, I can see Fortnite being around for years to come.  Another note on the variety is the weapons and items that they rotate in and out of the game.  One of the advantages they have with Fortnite is they can add literally anything to the game and it just works because of the cartoonish nature of the game.

The recent introduction of the creative mode into Fortnite is something that really just makes the game that much better because anytime you let the players start to design things you are going to have awesome creations.  Just look at what happened with DOTA, it was a simple WC3 mode that turned into one of the biggest games in the world.  Creative mode is also nice to have for times when my friends and I just want to play something different, like some puzzles or deathruns.  For someone like me that has put hundreds of hours into this game, having this different mode to just go mess around in has been a breath of fresh air.  It has even inspired me to start to create my own Block that I’ll submit to possibly get into the game.

The Bad:  The most glaringly obvious downside to this game is that even after about two years of the BR portion of the game being out there are still just constant bugs, hackers, and cheaters.  There are enough cheaters and hackers in the game currently that on an average night of playing I will run into at least one.  I will say that they have taken steps to help prevent this kind of thing and it has gotten better but they are still out there often enough that it is rather annoying.  Now the biggest downside to this game, the shear number of bugs that are still present in the game.  Everything from mics not working randomly to just dying to nothing.  This game has so many bugs to the point that they have even affected the outcome of some of the tournaments that have happened.  This could be forgiven if they game had just come out, but it has been out for about two years now.  Not only that but the game is literally running on the engine that they made.  If anything, that should mean there should be less or even no bugs in this game since they have the people that created the engine on their own staff.

Now looking at non-technical aspects of the game that could still use work, we have to look at the imbalance in some of the weapons in the game.  Pistols for the most part are worthless, except for the deagle, and most of the time you pick them up only if you don’t have anything better to use.  The problem is there are weapons that are just far superior to others in the game to the point that you can lose just off of complete bad luck.  Now for a controversial bad point, the battle pass.  While I’ll agree that the amount of bang for your buck that you get from completing a battle pass is great, the whole design of it is kind of terrible.  More often than not upwards of half the people in your games may not be even trying to play the game and are just going for the challenges to level up their battle pass.  Considering how out of the way some of the challenges are or how locations specific some are it completely changes the point of the game at points.  For example, for one challenge you had to visit certain areas, ones that people normally don’t go to, and dance.  I went to do this one match, and a place that would normally have no one landing at it had no less that 20 people land there.  While doing the challenges can sometimes be fun, it almost feels like they should be in a different game mode.

Something that I don’t really count as bad or good is the building in this game.  I feel like it is something that no other game will really try to copy and is just something that makes Fortnite the game that it is.

The Future:  As long as battle royale games stay popular, and maybe even after they start to die down, I feel like Fortnite will always be a popular one just because of the large variety of people that play the game.  As long as they continue to do the frequent updates and continue to do new things with their game their game then people will continue to play.  Before I would have said there was no other BR that could compete, but Apex Legends just released surprisingly and has really taken off so far.  If it continues to do well, we may finally have another BR over 100k viewers on twitch consistently.  Time will only tell.

-TheGuildmage