FORTNITE FRENZY
Recently, a certain video game has been capturing the
attention of millions worldwide due to its uniqueness, and that game is none
other than Fortnite Battle Royale. Fortnite is a Third Person “Battle-Royale”
game (hence the name Fortnite Battle Royale) available on Xbox, PlayStation,
and PC, and is currently one of the most popular video games among the gaming
community. “Battle Royale” is a genre of game where 100 online players are sent
to an island or confined zone and are tasked with eliminating each other and
being the last man standing by any means necessary. To do this, one must
utilize the vast arsenal of weaponry available against each other, not doing so
limits your chance of victory to almost nothing. Fortnite, however, puts a unique
twist to nearly all of these tasks, making it stand out from the crowd.
At the beginning of a match of Fortnite, you are placed in a
“waiting lobby” as you wait for all 100 players to join the match. Once all of
the players are in the lobby, the game places you in an aircraft flying over an
island, the island where everyone will be pit against each other. You have the
choice of where to jump out of the aircraft and freefall to, but choosing not
to will lead to getting kicked out of the aircraft, so better to jump on your own
terms. When you get close enough to the ground, a Glider will be deployed,
which will decrease your speed and prevent you from splatting on the ground.
Upon landing, you will need to find a weapon fast, as others are likely around
you, waiting to get an easy kill. Don’t fret! Weapons are easily obtainable and
are quite simple to find, because they glow. Weapons will come in different
rarities, Common (glows white), Uncommon (glows green), Rare (glows blue), Epic
(glows purple), and Legendary (glows gold). Each weapon will be efficient at
different tasks, such as the sniper is effective at long range while the
shotgun is more effective at short range. Higher rarities are also more
efficient than lower rarities, a higher rarity usually means that the weapon
has less recoil or does more damage per shot. Although weapons are important in
Fortnite, they aren’t the only items you can obtain while fighting for your
life. Items such as Bandages, Grenades, Shield Potions, and others are just as
important as the weapons, and only being able to hold five items total, you
must decide what is more important to take with you. Now, the island is huge,
so there must be some way to make people fight each other, or the match would
take forever… well, there is. Roughly a minute after you land on the island, a
white circle will appear on your map (which you can view by pressing a certain
button), and this circle is called the Safe Zone. There will be a timer urging
you to make your way to the safe zone before the area outside of the circle is
no longer safe. Once the timer hits zero, a purple circle can be seen on the
edge of the map slowly closing in, called the Storm, and the only way to avoid
it is to make your way to the Safe Zone. If you happen to find yourself in the
Storm circle, you will notice that you take one damage per second out of the
100 health (assuming that you have full health), and the storm will eliminate
you, unless you are able to make it to the Safe Zone. Once the Storm reaches
the Safe Zone, a new Safe Zone will appear inside of the already present Safe Zone,
this time smaller, to force players to face one another. This continues until
the safe zone is only big enough to fit one person inside, causing remaining
players to be eliminated. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Storm will do
increased damage as the Safe Zone gets smaller, increasing from 1 damage per
second, then to 2, then 5, then 10. Fortnite’s most unique feature is the
ability to build structures. Using the Harvesting Tool (which is literally a
Pickaxe) materials can be acquired through destroying trees, structures, rocks,
and cars. You can then use the acquired materials to build walls, floors,
ramps, and pyramids. This can be utilized in combat, keeping you safe, but not forever
as the structures can be destroyed. In the end your main goal is to be the last
alive, whether you play it safe and hide, or go in guns blazing, victory is
only obtainable by surviving. But you don’t have to die alone! Fortnite also
allows you to team up with one or three other friends.
Fortnite isn’t the
only Battle Royale game on the market, other games are available such as PlayerUnknown’s
Battlegrounds, H1Z1, and The Culling, to name a few. PlayerUnknown’s
Battlegrounds (PUBG) is fighting with Fortnight for the most popular Battle
Royale game, and most recently Fortnite surpassed PUBG as most popular with 3.4
million concurrent players. This popularity could attribute to Fortnite being
free, while PUBG costs around $30. Fortnite also keeps players coming back with
constant updates, adding new locations to land at, adding new weapons, adding
new game modes, and the Battle Pass. Fortnite is always introducing new game
modes for players to enjoy for a limited amount of time such as: All Gold (where
all of the weapons that you find are legendary), 50v50 (instead of playing
solo, duo, or squads there are two teams of 50 that fight it out), and most
recently, 20 Man Squads (5 teams of 20 face each other). The Battle Pass is
seasonal, which means it usually lasts around 60 days, and is a “book” that you
can complete to unlock various items. These items include Skins (different
characters to play as), Back Bling (backpacks, bow ties, fake wings, etc…), Trails (lines that follow you as you’re freefalling in the sky), Emotes
(dances, gestures, etc…), Gliders (think of hang gliding, its what you use when you land) Harvesting Tools (pickaxes as mentioned earlier), and Emblems (little pictures next to your name). The Battle Pass, along with other
skins you can acquire, costs real money, and is how Fortnite makes money, with
the game being free. What Fortnite’s creators Epic Games does perfectly here,
is what they do with Microtransactions. Microtransactions in video games costs
real money out of our pockets to purchase items in game, otherwise known as
Fortnite’s Battle Pass. The only things you can purchase in Fortnite are
considered cosmetics, which only affect how the player looks. Most games that
have Microtransactions today gives players unfair advantages for having a big
wallet, and usually have a large price tag for the game itself. Fortnite has
done a beautiful job in restraining itself to not do this, but still work in
Microtransactions. The game has also had huge success on YouTube and Twitch,
two very popular media platforms. Entire channels have been dedicated to
Fortnite and insane gameplay footage by people who play it. Due to this massive
popularity, combined with it being free-to-play, and the gameplay style that
appeals to many, Fortnite Battle Royale has been hugely successful in just
about every way, and many would consider it the best game that is currently on
the market.
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