Fortnite: Epic's Weird, Wonderful Creative Departure

Posted by smrtsmith on August 16th, 2018

That focus on humor and open-ended game design is totally new territory for Epic Games. This will be the studio that brought us Gears of War, a set whose dedication to handcrafted battles and scripted grandeur influenced a full generation of shooters. According to steer producer Roger Collum, this creative departure isn't a coincidence.
"To be entirely honest, Fortnite Skins is really a palette cleanser due to this studio," says Collum. "Gears was an issue that we'd done for a protracted, number of years. And this is a franchise we hold in close proximity to our heart. But we wanted to try and do something new and refreshing."
While this is usually a change of pace for Epic, it's virtually no leisurely one. Fortnite is definitely an ambitious amalgam of genres utilizing shooter combat--the sort of stuff Epic can be so well known for--as one small piece of any much larger puzzle. Everything else, including the overall game's free-to-play enterprize model, is uncharted territory with the studio that gave us Marcus Fenix and company.
First, you have the element of exploration. Every level, from the picturesque forest for the cluttered remains of any city ravaged by husks, is but one big procedurally-generated sandbox meant being explored in your heart's content. Forests contain a great deal of raw materials it is possible to gather by harvesting trees and Fortnite Items stones, and there exists a good chance you'll also find caves containing rare minerals that may come in handy for crafting explosives. Pillage the garages, spaces, and offices of an lived-in town and you'll use a better chance of finding pre-assembled weapons and tools. That could mean a high-level katana tucked away inside a treasure chest in someone's attic, an improved pickaxe for scavenging resources, or that many valuable of crafting ingredients: duct tape.