Fortnite: Battle Royale (PC, PS4 & Xbox One) is currently Jürgen’s favorite game. But why is that? And does this mean it will die soon?
Fortnite: Battle Royale I found quite good, even when everyone praised PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to the skies and nobody ever thought that this colorful clone of PUBG would ever succeed.
Rather, I feared for the future of Fortnite. Because the PvE mode was back then already not very fresh, and the PvP mode looked like a typical “Jürgen game” once again: colorfully, crazy, wild and doomed to die.
You might know the Stöffel curse: Everything I love dies!
Free and good
Since I firmly expected that Fortnite would never compete against PUBG, I played it as long as I could. But somehow this game was probably not affected by the “Stöffel curse”. Instead of dying after just a few weeks, even more gamers seemed to share my taste.
Fortnite kept getting bigger, which surely also had to do with the fact that it was free-to-play and ran on consoles. But on the other hand, Fortnite: Battle Royale just ran smoother than the competition. The developers at Epic just know how to do it and can really program well as the developers of the Unreal Engine.
Meanwhile, PUBG still struggles with performance issues today. Fortnite, on the other hand, rarely stutters for me, unless there’s a huge download running in the background or my girlfriend is watching Netflix.
Colorful and silly instead of serious and realistic
And then there’s this unique Fortnite look that has delighted me since the PvE version. A battle royale scenario is actually quite cruel. After all, it is based on the book and film of the same name, in which students cruelly slaughter each other as part of a dehumanizing experiment.
Honestly, nobody wants to experience something like that in real life. Thus, I always found the sober, realistic presentation of PUBG somewhat depressing. Especially after the unintentionally creepy launch trailer for the Xbox release of PUBG. I missed the necessary distance to truly enjoy it as entertainment.
Less violence, more fun
With the colorful comic graphics in Pixar style, I have exactly that humorous distance from the action to shoot around at will. You just can’t take it seriously when a nutcracker, a skier, a teddy bear, and the monkey king Sun Wukong blast each other away with a minigun and shotgun.
Besides, nobody really dies in Fortnite: Battle Royale. If you go down, you are timely teleported to safety. There’s no blood either, it’s all just a big fun fest. This is probably one of the reasons why the game is so popular among children.
Less complexity, more action!
Compared to PUBG, Fortnite is quite simple in many aspects. There are no vehicles and no weapon upgrades. You might find that terrible as a simulation fan, but I celebrate it! Due to my profession, I have to play many MMOs and hardly have time to really dive deep into one.
Therefore, I prefer games where I can just jump in and play. Unlike in PUBG, I can grab an assault rifle and go hunting. I don’t have to first look for tons of upgrades because the gun only rocks with a laser sight and stock.
I also find the smaller map a blessing. It starts off quickly and it doesn’t take long to find new opponents. Exactly my pace!
Humor and silliness instead of gray seriousness
And then there’s the crazy humor of the developers. It starts right with the fact that you don’t just jump out of a plane. No, in Fortnite, you’re not cowering together in fear on the plane. You celebrate before the battle royale in a flying party bus! You can even hear the muffled party music!
Then it continues in a similarly quirky fashion. When jumping out, players leave colorful trails behind them. In the end, gliders are deployed, bringing Mary Poppins umbrellas, Chinese dragons, and gigantic teddy bears named “Bear Force One” to light. That way, you safely land at delightfully alliterating places like “Snobby Shores”, “Salty Springs”, or “Anarchy Acres”!
The pencil of death!
Once you land, the craziest characters run into your sights. I already mentioned cuddly bears and Wukong. But Fortnite goes further and copies popular characters from games and films. The ultimate battle pass skin “Grim Reaper” looks very similar to the action anti-hero John Wick.
You can also see this in the accessories. For the pseudo-Wick, you can unlock a glider that resembles his beloved car. If you look closely, you’ll also find a pickaxe for the “Grim Reaper”. It’s a nasty pick with a pencil at the end.
If you know the Wick movies, you surely remember the quote that the terrified Russian mobsters tell about Wick: “He once took out three guys in a bar, with a pencil!” He probably had such a pickaxe with him then.
Motivation through challenges, not loot boxes
I am also really glad that Epic Games does not rely on loot boxes as a progress method in Fortnite. That, as we know, did not end well with EA and Battlefront 2. Instead of getting some box full of junk because you want a specific skin (and never receive it), you can buy outfits in Fortnite directly.
They are admittedly not exactly cheap. But since the game is free and you can earn the real money currency V-Bucks in the PVE part of the game, you are less hesitant to spend money in Fortnite than in Battlefront and so on.
The battle pass is simply great!
A real bargain, however, is the battle pass, which costs around 9.50 euros and currently offers 100 levels full of rewards. Addition to that are daily and weekly challenges. This forces you to motivate yourself to change your tactics and gameplay from time to time.
If you have to get five kills with a submachine gun, you’ll try out that weapon more often and may find it enjoyable. And if kills need to be achieved at a remote location on the map, those places suddenly see more action at the beginning of the game.
Experiments instead of stagnation
Finally, I find it absolutely great that the developers never stand still but continuously develop Fortnite: Battle Royale like crazy. A new game mode just comes out every week. Recently, there was a mode where you only found perfect weapons. The rounds were much more offensive because everyone was quickly perfectly equipped and didn’t have to search forever for good gear.
As of the time of this article, there is currently a game mode where five teams of 20 players compete against each other. A chaotic mess and a hell of a fun at the same time!
One learns from mistakes
Of course, now and then the developers miss the mark and introduce a mode that doesn’t work well. This happened with the 50vs50 mode. But that’s okay, a week later, something new will come anyway, and what wasn’t good won’t be back or will be revised.
The curse is broken!
Fortnite: Battle Royale is probably the first game that I really like and that is successful. Currently, it doesn’t look like Epic is going to crash with the game. I’m just glad that my curse is probably broken and I can spend a lot of time in Fortnite: Battle Royale.
And even if it sounds like I hate PUBG: That is not the case at all, I also think this game is good and had a lot of fun there, especially in a team! Only Fortnite appeals to me more. Luckily, there is enough room for both battle royale games!
You can now also play Fortnite in an English pub and earn free beer. Hopefully, my local pub will come up with this idea too!
