Fortnite: Save the World is a co-op sandbox survival game developed by Epic Games and People Can Fly and published by Epic Games. Wikipedia.Fortnite: Save the World is designed as player-versus-environment game, featuring four players cooperating towards a common objective on various missions. The game is set after a fluke storm appears across Earth, causing 98% of the population to disappear and the survivors to be attacked by zombie-like "husks". The players take the role of commanders of home base shelters, collecting resources, saving survivors, and defending equipment that help to either collect data on the storm or to push back the storm. From missions, players are awarded a number of in-game items, which include hero characters, weapon and trap schematics, and survivors, all which can be leveled up through gained experience to improve their attributes.
Fortnite Battle Royale is a player-versus-player battle royale game for up to 100 players, playing alone or in squads of two or four. Players airdrop from a "Battle Bus" that crosses the game's map without any weapons. When they land, they must scavenge for weapons, items, and resources, avoiding being killed while attacking other players. Over the course of a round, the safe area of the map shrinks down in size due to an incoming storm; players outside that safe area take damage and can be killed. This forces remaining players into tighter spaces and encourages player encounters. The last player or squad alive is the winner.
Both game modes give the ability to player to use a pickax to knock down existing structures on the map to collect basic resources (wood, brick, and steel), from then which they can build pieces of fortification, such as walls, floors, and stairs. Such fortification pieces can be edited to include other features such as windows or doors. The materials used have different durability properties and can be updated to stronger variants using more materials of the same type. Within "Save the World" this enables players to create defensive fortifications around an objective or trap-filled tunnels to lure husks through. In "Battle Royale", this provides the means to quickly traverse the map, protect oneself from enemy fire, or to delay an advancing foe.
Both game modes are set to be free-to-play titles, though presently, "Save the World" is in early access and requires purchase to play. Both games are monetized through the use of V-Bucks, in-game currency that can also be earned only through "Save the World". V-bucks in "Save the World" can be used to buy pinatas shaped like llamas to gain a random selection of items. In "Battle Royale", V-bucks can be used to buy cosmetic items like character models or the like, or can also be used to purchase the game's Battle Pass, a tiered progression of customization rewards for gaining experience and completing certain objectives during the course of a "Battle Royale" season.
Development
Fortnite: Save the World
Main article: Fortnite: Save the World § Development
Fortnite began from an internal game jam at Epic Games following the publishing of Gears of War 3 around 2011. Though it was not initially one of the developed titles during the jam, the concept of merging the construction game genre, representing games like Minecraft and Terraria, and shooter games arose, leading to the foundation of Fortnite. Development of Fortnite slowed due to several issues, including switching from the Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal 4, a deeper role-playing game approach to extend the life of the game, and a switch of art style from a dark theme to a more cartoonish style. Further, Epic was looking to get into the games as a service model, and brought in Chinese publisher Tencent to help; Tencent took a large stake in Epic as part of this, leading to the departure of several executives, including Cliff Bleszinski, who had been a key part of Fortnite's development. Fortnite's approach was changed to be Epic's testbed for games as a service, and further slowed the development.
Ultimately, Epic was able to prepare to release Fortnite as a paid early access title in July 2017, with plans to release it as free-to-play sometime in 2018 while gaining feedback from players to improve the game. With the release of Fortnite Battle Royale, the player-versus-environment mode was distinguished as "Save the World".
Fortnite Battle Royale
Main article: Fortnite Battle Royale § Development
Near the same time that Epic released Fortnite into early access, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds had become a worldwide phenomenon, having sold over 5 million copies three months from its March 2017 release, and drawing strong interest in the battle royale genre. Epic recognized that with the Fortnite base game, they could also do a battle royale mode, and rapidly developed their own version atop Fortnite in about two months.. By September 2017, Epic was ready to release this as a second mode from "Save the World" in the paid-for earlier access, but then later decided to release it as a free game, Fortnite Battle Royale, supported with microtransactions. This version quickly gained players, with over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release, and leading Epic to create separate teams to continue the Fortnite Battle Royale development apart from the "Save the World" mode, outside of common engine elements and art assets. This allowed Fortnite Battle Royale to expand to other platforms otherwise not supported by the "Save the World" mode, including iOS and Android mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
