Epic Games has announced that the development of the original Fortnite’s “Save the World” is essentially complete and updates will now come less frequently. Players feel: That’s it, we have been buried by Epic like Paragon. Twitch streamers are announcing their departure, some are even crying.
This is the game: Fortnite: Save the World was released on July 25, 2017, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One as a paid title. It was supposed to be the flagship game of Unreal Engine 4 but remained lost for a long time. When it finally released, it did spark a hype briefly during the summer of 2017, which quickly faded.
It is a survival co-op game for 4 players where you can collect loot and build forts (a “Fort”) during the day to ultimately fend off a horde of monsters at night (Nite) that want to tear down your fort. This gameplay principle is where the name Fortnite comes from.
However, almost immediately after the launch of “Fortnite: Save the World,” developers from Unreal Tournament put together “Fortnite: Battle Royale” in two months, which heavily borrowed from “PUBG”.
While from September 2017 onward Fortnite: “Battle Royale” became a worldwide hit as a free-to-play game, “Save the World” has been living in obscurity for years.
This was partly because players did not want to buy the game, as they were waiting for it to be offered for free:
- Because originally Save the World was supposed to become a free-to-play title in 2018. Then the game should leave early access and be free
- but Epic decided at the end of 2018 that the game was not yet ready to become free-to-play and to launch. It needed to provide a great gaming experience for everyone first
- now we know that this will never happen – Save the World will not become free anymore
“Story development completed”
This is what Epic says: In a blog post dated June 30, 2020, Epic Games announced some updates about Fortnite “Save the World.” After all, the game has been out for 3 years:
- the game leaves early access and is officially released
- Fortnite: Save the World will never come for free, as originally thought, but will always cost money
- the story campaign of the game is completed
- development of the game will slow down
- they want to focus on “long-term replayability” now
At first glance, this all sounds reasonable and positive, right?
Players believe: This is the end
This is how it is read: Players of “Save the World” interpret these statements completely differently than they are stated. Because in their view, this is now a sign from Epic that they are finally giving up on “Save the World” and putting it into maintenance mode, meaning only doing the bare minimum.
The players of Save the World have long felt that their game has had developers and resources taken away in favor of “Fortnite: Battle Royale.” They believe they are now in the same situation as the fans of “Paragon” – the MOBA was discontinued by Epic Games in 2018 to free up more resources for Fortnite: Battle Royale.
Players are particularly upset that Epic says “the campaign is finished”; while the final zone “Twine Peaks” is still not equipped with its own biome in the game.
Twitch streamers announce their farewell in tears
This is how players react: At the moment, many bitter memes and images are being posted. Negative news is piling up on reddit.
Some “great content creators” have announced that they have shown “Save the World” for the last time. There were many tears shed. The Twitch streamer “DemonJoeFrance” even cried during his last stream.
In general, people feel deceived and let down by Epic Games. Players are digging up old promises from 2017 and 2018 stating that “Save the World” should be doing well. However, that promise was not kept.
They accuse Epic of having blatantly lied and the reasons are clear: It’s only about the money. Constantly, memes are shared depicting how Epic Games is “executing” the game.
Epic could never solve the problem with free V-Bucks
This is what lies behind it: Save the World launched in 2017 but flopped pretty badly.
The game had good ideas but relied on strong pay-to-win mechanics like those found in an Asian mobile game.
Save the World was revised and became fairer, but remained overshadowed by Fortnite: Battle Royale. It has actually been hardly relevant in recent years and has become less and less important, even though there were some hardcore fans who really liked the game.
But for most players, “Save the World” was a way to get V-Bucks cheaply, to spend them on skins in Fortnite: Battle Royale.
That was probably also a problem Epic could never solve: “Save the World” gave out many V-Bucks, which players then used to obtain free skins in Battle Royale.
If “Save the World” had gone free as promised in 2018, it would have likely significantly reduced the revenues from Battle Royale.
Therefore, Epic Games kept reassuring players that the original Fortnite would eventually become “free-to-play” but could never keep that promise. Especially since Fortnite: Battle Royale was likely consuming more resources and labor hours.
We have frequently reported on MeinMMO over the past years about how poorly players of “Save the World” feel and that they feel like the unloved stepchildren of Epic Games. This was particularly evident at an event in October 2019:
The original players of Fortnite are really pissed off – and justifiably so
