Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard of Fortnite. Since its release in 2017 the game has received accolade after accolade including winning the People's Voice Award for Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game at the 22nd Annual Webby Awards.
This year the game was awarded a coveted 9.6 out of 10 score from IGN, with the publication saying: “Mastering Fortnite Battle Royale’s many systems is worth every second of investment. Whether you go it alone or queue up with a squad, even if you’re the first to die or you actually manage to earn the Victory Royale, Fortnite’s zany style and unique blend of shooting and building almost never offers anything less than an outstanding time. It may not be the first battle royale game, and it certainly won’t be the last, but Fortnite sets itself apart from the crowd by giving you the freedom and tools to express your own personal playstyle.”
Needless to say, the game has legions of fans around the world. If you’re interested in taking it up–or just want to know more about the game everyone is talking about, here are all the details to get you up to speed.
Fortnite: Story
The game is set on modern-day earth where the appearance of a sudden unexplained storm has caused havoc across the world. When the storm arrived, 98% of people on the planet disappeared.
In their place, zombie-like monsters and other creatures appeared to attack the remaining humans. You play as a survivor who needs to scavenge around to collect parts and building materials to construct massive forts that provide shelter and a defensive position to weather attacks.
Besides scavenging for materials to build forts, you can also upgrade your weapons and build creative traps. Further, you can work hand in hand with other players to build forts together and push back the demon horrors that come for you.
Fortnite: Gameplay
The game is classified as a co-op sandbox survival game. Tim Sweeney, the founder of Fortnite’s publisher Epic, describes the game as "Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead.” And that’s a great way of describing it: you hold up in forts to fend of hordes of monsters when they attack, then, when the coast is clear, you go out into the world to resupply yourself.
Matter of fact, a large part of the game is about exploration. It’s up to players to explore every part of the map to find supplies to equip themselves with. The more supplies you get, the better forts you can build.
As for characters, you’ll play as one of four different types of heroes. The classes are Constructor–someone who is better than the rest at building forts; Ninja–a quick and agile attacker who is great in a fight; Outlander–someone who is skilled at resource collection and discovering treasures; and Soldier–a character that possesses the traits of the other three, but to a lesser extent. A Soldier is a good all-arounder.
Fortnite: Battle Royale
So far we’ve described the console version of Fortnite. But there is also a mobile version of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale. This is a free-to-play battle royale game that is a smaller version of the main Fortnite game. It features one mode and one map. But as it’s free, it currently has over 2 million mobile players making it a massive hit.
When people mention “Fortnite”, nine times out of ten they mean the mobile version.
Fortnite: Platforms
Fortnite is available on all major gaming platforms including Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Fortnite Battle Royale is also available on the above systems in addition to Android and iOS.
