Fortnite
Fortnite is described as a co-op sandbox survival game or a survival building game. This is a game built by Epic Games (creators of Gears of War) where you build forts and defend against waves of zombie-like enemies called husks. Though this may be the main objective, the game is also all about exploration, scavenging items, crafting weapons, building fortified structures, finding loot and upgrading your character, weapons and abilities.
Fortnite Official Cinematic Trailer
Development
Epic Games came up with the idea of Fortnite shortly after they finished working on Gears of War for eight years. This cartoon style that you see for Fortnite wasn’t epic’s first design style idea. Naturally, they gravitated towards that Gears of War creepy-looking style art. Check out these early art concepts from GameInformer.
Epic eventually switched to more of the cartoon style that you see in this game. They wanted to bring forth something fresh and new and pull themselves out of that Gears of War art style box. They say, however, that some of those Gears art elements are still in the game.
Gathering
Players begin by scavenge items they can use for building their fort during the day. Then, during the night they must defend it from the zombies. From what I can tell from gameplay footage I’ve seen, forts are built to protect something and survive.
Gathering basically is the core mechanic of this game. You will use your pickaxe to gather materials. Everything you build and craft is going to require materials. There are 3 main types of materials that you will need to collect: wood, metal and stone. Other materials you can collect are nuts, bolts crystals and more, which will be used in crafting and building certain things.
Gathering with your pickaxe has a technique to it as well. You see the blue marker in the images below? That will pop up whenever you are gathering and have unlocked Weakpoint Vision on your skill tree.
You can cut the time it takes to craft significantly by hitting that blue marker. Once hit, it will move to a different location, which you will need to adjust your aim to hit again. This is useful when you are in a rush and need to quickly collect materials.
While out on your adventures you will come across areas that you can search. Things like bushes, couches and toolboxes can be looted, which can award things like materials and traps. Be sure to search any boxes, chest,etc before destroying or you wont get the items inside.
Exploration
During the day you will be given time to gather, which can (and should) also be used to explore. As you explore you will discover objectives, side missions and mini games that you can do before your main objective. These side missions, objectives and mini games can be things such as rescuing survivors and playing wack a troll, where you must hit a zombie that pops out of the ground. Completing them can reward you with weapons, materials, etc.
At the start of the game you will be given a map. The map will be covered by fog. The fog will fade away on the map as you explore the area.
Crafting
Crafting is also one of the most important elements of this game. You will need to craft things like weapons, traps and ammo. The weapons you craft will eventually break so you will need to craft new ones. You will need materials to craft so this goes back to why gathering is important.
Building
Building forts around the objectives is one of the ways to defend against the zombies. You can use the wood, brick and metal materials to build walls but they all have different durability levels. Wood will be the weakest wall to build but the easiest material to find and metal will be the strongest. You can craft doors, arch ways and stairs within the walls using more specific crafting techniques.
Another thing you will need to build are traps. Traps will be very useful for defending your fort. You can place some traps on walls but other traps will need a panel built on the floor first. You can get traps by crafting them, looting them or as a reward.
Heros
There are 4 types of heros that you can play as:
- Soldier | Survivalist: Tough soldier who can rapidly heal by defeating enemies.
- Constructor | Decoy: Places upgraded decoys that damage enemies in addition to pulling them off the walls.
- Outlander | Explorer: Uses phase shift and keen eyes to swiftly explore and hunt for rare loot.
- Ninja | Assassin: Focused on melee combat. Great for jumping in hordes to do some damage then quickly jumping out.
Each hero come with abilities that are specific to them and a special ability. You can level up your heros to unlock their abilities. As you level up your hero, their appearance will change as well. Once again, you will need materials to level up and some materials are very high level so be sure to loot at all times.
*Note* I didn’t see any indication that 2 of the same hero types can be played at one time.
So just how long are the Fortnite missions?
This video from VentureBeat shows just how long the missions will be. It also gives a visual example on some of the topics discussed eariler in this post.
Playing with friends
Four players can play at one time so grab four of your friends and head out. This game is peer to peer trade friendly so if you have something that your friend need or need to help out your buddy who just started, you can drop them some weapons and items. Each hero has unique abilities so each player much play their role for your team to be more effective.
How much is the Fortnite game?
There are several editions for you to choose from ranging from $39.99 to $149.99. *Fortnite will eventually become a “Free-to-Play” sometime in 2018*.
- The Standard Edition is $39.99.
- The Deluxe Edition is $59.99.
- The Super Deluxe Edition is $89.99.
- The Limited Edition is $149.99.
Each edition has its own set of in-game rewards per purchase. Ofcoarse, the higher tier edition will reward more things. Rewards consist of things like schematics, weapons and more.
You can purchase the Fortnite video game from your consoles market place, places like amazon or from Epic Games website here. Epic Games website goes further into detail about the rewards you will receive after each edition purchase.
Other Information
There will apparently be a vault where you can store some of your weapons and items. If you look at the limited edition for Fortnite on Epic’s website, you can see that additional vault space is awarded for purching that Edition. Additional backpack space is awarded as well.
You will come across pinatas in the game. Smash them to recieve weapons, items and new hero cards. From the looks of things, pinatas may even have tier levels. This is a bit speculation from what I see on Epics website, but higher tier level pinatas will come at random. If you smash it, it will give you more rare items. Scroll down to the pinata pack section here.
So there you have it. As you can see, Fortnite is way more complex than it seem. I will release more post going further into detail about certain features in the game so stay tuned. There is still lots to cover. I will explain things like outpost and defenders and possibly even raids but take that last thing with a grain of salt.
Fortnite release date is on July 25, but if you preorder you will gain early access and play on July 21st. Fortnite will launch on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
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