It is a funny thing, says our author Schuhmann. For a year and a half, Epic promised that Fortnite Save the World would be free in 2018. Now they are cashing in the promise, and hardly anyone cares.
This was the release promise: Since summer 2017, it was clear that Fortnite “Save the World” would be free sometime in 2018.
This was the big binding release promise of Fortnite: the game was still in Early Access and would cost money. By 2018, it would be officially released and then be free.
The issue was sharply criticized in July 2017: that Epic was releasing a supposed “Free2Play” game for a fee and putting it in stores was considered a breach of good manners by some players.
Many players waited specifically to buy because they thought the game could become free at any time.
This is what has happened now: Just a few days ago, it was thought that Fortnite would be free by December 2018, at the start of Season 7.
But things turned out differently.
Without much apology or taking it too seriously, Epic withdrew the promise. They stated there was still much to do and they didn’t feel ready for the 2018 launch and were now indeed no longer planning to release the game on time as announced.
They presented some plans regarding what changes they would make soon, promised large blog posts, and wrapped it up without mentioning a specific new launch date.
This is the surprising thing about it: I was surprised at how absolutely okay this seemed to everyone. The video in which the delay was announced has over 32,000 upvotes, with only 4,000 downvotes.
Even on Reddit, it seems there’s agreement: the call to delay the launch is generally seen as the right decision. The game simply wasn’t ready for launch. Everyone could see that coming.
This is why Epic’s decision is right: Indeed, Epic had to act this way because Fortnite Save the World was hardly developed in 2018.
The game still has huge gaps in the story. And the development pace is slow.
There are hardly any new features, patches only add items to the event shop. While “Fortnite Battle Royale” receives huge events, updates, and constant action, “Save the World” is creeping toward its release at a snail’s pace.
Epic spent most of the time on Save the World:
- to tone down the Pay2Win progress system, which likely came from mobile games by investor Tencent and broke the game in summer 2017
- countless skins and little things were added to Fortnite – they transformed dozens of skins from Battle Royale into their own heroes for the shop
- then they spent a lot of time on secondary modes, horde modes, and similar things
- they also finished all kinds of seasonal events – from Easter bunnies to spooky houses for Halloween
- granted, an important feature came new, the Perk Twister brought variety to the game
- a lot of time had to be invested to combat bugs and exploits in Fortnite: Save the World
But what is missing:
- in the campaign, however, not much has happened. Only the first third of the story for Zone 3 has been delivered by Epic. The other 66% from Bru-Tal and the complete campaign for Zone 4 are still missing. In November, it is supposed to continue here.
- and now Epic has realized that they want to rebuild the whole game. Instead of having a lobby where much happens, they now want to shift the action to the actual game. This of course takes time.
What do I care about my dumb chatter from yesterday?
This annoys me: What annoys me about Fortnite “Save the World” is that Epic apparently did not feel bound to the promise to actually release the game for free in 2018.
Because to achieve that, they would have had to go full throttle on “Save the World” for a year and a half. But apparently, that was never really up for debate – understandable for economic reasons.
Instead, they let “Save the World” run on low flame and presented players with a game at the end of 2018, where everyone knew it wasn’t ready for a release.
Thus, players are now applauding a decision that only became right because Epic had behaved wrongly for a year and a half.
This is how Epic could have acted correctly: Then Epic should have said right from the beginning with the success of Battle Royale in January 2018: “Listen, we are no longer planning the release of Save the World in 2018. We have different priorities now.”
Players would surely have understood that and could have then decided whether to buy Save the World just for the free V-Bucks or not.
The delay now, announced so late in the year, even though nothing has changed in the situation for a year, I find annoying.
Save the World – the stepchild
The status of Save the World in 2018: When Fortnite: Save the World nearly failed in summer 2017, Epic went “All-In” to quickly launch “Fortnite Battle Royale” within a few months and turn it into a huge success.
That is impressive and deserves respect. A fraction of that energy in “Save the World” would have resulted in the game being in a far better position by the end of 2018.
At the moment, Fortnite Save the World remains a kind of unloved stepchild next to the immensely popular playground beauty Fortnite: Battle Royale. Not even its own parents seem to love it as they should. That is a shame.
Save the World certainly does not have as many fans as Fortnite Battle Royale. But it has fans, and they deserve something better.
This is how Fortnite Save the World will continue:
