In 2017, the original Fortnite: Save the World was released, initially a PvE game. Over the years, the game has been increasingly overshadowed by Fortnite: Battle Royale. Now comes the next blow: Not even as an “independent game” will Save the World be considered in February 2022, as the new patch removes it from the Fortnite launcher and it will only be a mode of the Free2Play game.
What is the original Fortnite? On July 25, 2017, Fortnite: “Save the World” was released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. At that time, it was an unusual early access title that was sold in stores. This was not typical for consoles. However, Save the World was an exception, as it was intended to be the showcase title of Unreal Engine 4.
Back then, it was stated: The game was now sold in a “raw state” but was to be further developed and ultimately released as a major Free-To-Play title in 2018.
The game heavily relied on microtransactions and grind. Players could sink a ton of money into “Loot Llamas,” which contained rare mythical cards. The selling prices at that time were also quite high: A Founder’s Pack cost up to €149. The standard PS4 version was priced at €59.90 at Media Markt – standard versions for PC and Xbox One were available for just under €40.
In the actual game, players built bases called “Forts” during the day in cooperative mode, which they then had to defend against various types of zombies at night (Nite). That’s also where the name comes from: Fortnite.
Battle Royale turns original Fortnite into Cinderella
How did the mode perform? Relatively quickly, already in September 2017, Epic Games realized that their game “Fortnite: Save the World” was not performing as well as hoped. Therefore, they rapidly brought up “Fortnite: Battle Royale”, a fairly blatant copy of the game concept from “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”, which at the time was the biggest PC game in the world that they were technically overseeing as the developers of Unreal Engine.
PUBG even filed a lawsuit, but later withdrew it.
Fortnite: Battle Royale became one of the biggest gaming phenomena of all time in 2018. Epic Games allocated more and more resources to Fortnite: Battle Royale, shutting down the shooter Paragon, repurposing the team from Unreal Tournament, and limiting further work on Fortnite: Save the World.
The PvE game sank into obscurity, receiving less and less new content. The larger Fortnite became as a phenomenon, the smaller “Save the World” seemed by comparison.
The remaining fans hoped that the release of Fortnite: Save the World as a “Free2Play” title would finally bring a turnaround. After all, the release was still planned for 2018. Surely, all the players from Battle Royale would then recognize how great the PvE mode was and switch over.
But this Free2Play release was first postponed and then completely canceled. Because in the summer of 2020 came the news:
- The development of “Fortnite: Save the World” is now complete.
- The game is now officially released, no longer in Early Access.
- A “Free2Play” version will never exist.
- The game will now also be developed more slowly than before, which sounded quite cynical: Because the game had been virtually neglected by Epic Games for years in the eyes of fans.
Epic removes “Save the World” from the main launcher
Here’s the new news: With the latest patch 19.30 in Fortnite, “Save the World” is now being degraded once more.
The whole time, it was still the case that players could choose when logging into Fortnite whether they wanted to log into “Save the World”, “Battle Royale”, or the “Create your World” mode. This is changing now: Starting today, players will automatically join the “Battle Royale” mode.
Save the World has now been downgraded to a mode that must be selected through its own submenu.
$250 paid for “Sub-mode of a Free2Play” game
This is the discussion: On reddit, the remaining players complain once again about their fate. They now say:
- This is what we are to Epic. Instead of a “$40” game, we are now just a game mode.
- A player then asks in essence: “What do you mean $40? I paid $250 for the Ultimate Edition back then.”
- Another player says: “A €40 game should not become a playlist in a Free2Play mode.”
In 2019, we reported how Epic Games dealt a blow to the hopes of PvE fans:
The original players of Fortnite are really pissed off – And rightly so
