The game Fortnite was unplayable for over a day and a half. Now there is a new map in Fortnite: Battle Royale. But a group of players is currently frustrated with Epic: The original players and buyers of Fortnite, fans of “Save the World.”
Who are the original players of Fortnite? What many today may not know: The Fortnite that most people know was hastily thrown together by Epic in record time.
The team from “Unreal Tournament” is said to have programmed the Battle Royale within a few weeks. They were clearly inspired by PUBG, which its developer Bluehole did not find so great.
The actual Fortnite was released a few months earlier, in the summer of 2017, as a paid “Early Access” title for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, after Epic had been developing the game for years. It was supposed to be the flagship project for the “Unreal Engine 4,” but it was delayed for a long time, went missing, and was almost forgotten.
Fortnite: Save the World is a coop shooter where players can build forts to defend against zombies.
That was briefly popular in the summer of 2017, but most players quickly lost interest. Likely also because the monetization and progression system of the game seemed to be directly derived from a Chinese mobile game.
In the following months, Save the World was developed with some new modes, such as Survival, in an engaged but somewhat dubious manner.
Since Fortnite Battle Royale has become such a hit, the development of Fortnite: Save the World has apparently slowed down. Although Epic has improved the progression system and made the Loot Llamas more publicly fair, there have been no major leaps in Fortnite in the last few months.
Epic’s Forgotten Children: “We Are Just Not Getting Anything”
Why are the players upset now? Even with “Save the World,” Fortnite was unplayable for almost a day and a half due to the black hole. Some even thought that Epic was planning to release “Save the World” for free as announced.
But when Fortnite came back, there was no new world waiting for the PvE fans:
- Fortnite Chapter 2 brought almost no changes for “Save the World”
- and only a thin roadmap (via epicgames)
Epic itself says that the update for the season start for Save the World is smaller than previous ones. They now want “to release fewer updates – but they should have a greater impact.”
The players of Save the World feel completely abandoned and left behind by Epic with Fortnite Chapter 2. Frustrated players are venting on reddit:
- PvE players feel like “second-class players” – after all, they paid for the game but are hardly getting anything new now (via reddit)
- the servers were down for almost 48 hours, and Battle Royale received many improvements, yet the PvE players are getting practically nothing, just “fucking reskins” and a “shitty roadmap” (via reddit)
- it is clear that Epic has lost passion for “Fortnite: Save the World” and has given up on the game (via reddit)
Lack of Progress is Frustrating
What’s behind it: Fortnite: Save the World was supposed to be “finished” as a Free2Play title in 2018. Instead, this release has been postponed indefinitely.
Then in November 2018, a larger patch was released for the game that overhauled the interface – but that was almost it.
Since then, only promises and minimal improvements have surfaced. It is currently unclear how Epic will continue the game or when exactly this “Free2Play” release, which was actually scheduled for 2018, will happen.
Even now, players are mainly presented with features that “might” still come, but little concrete is said.
Fortnite: Save the World may not have a huge number of players, but it has some loyal fans who now feel increasingly neglected. The specter hanging over it is “Paragon”: Epic’s action MOBA started with a lot of potential but was then infamously ended.
Fans have the feeling that their game could meet a similar fate.
