Every so often a game will come along that completely dominates the landscape for a while and Fortnite is one of those games. Created by Epic Games and originally showcased WAY back in 2011, Fortnite is the current big-hitter in the now popular Battle Royale genre and it's basically impossible to have at least not heard of it given all the publicity it's been getting.
Fortnite is actually some kind of zombie survival game that I've ever played. I think it involves a team of people scavenging and building a fort in order to survive against waves of zombies that get progressively harder. I think it has characters that have unique abilities and you're supposed to work together to save the world, or at least that's what it says in the menu.
However following the popularity of Player Unknowns Battlegrounds they added a battle royale mode where 100 players skydive into an island to kill each other until there is only one player remaining. You start the game with no gear save for a pick axe that you can use to gather materials and from there it's up to you to find guns and supplies in order to kill everyone else. As you play there's a storm that encroaches on the play area every couple of minutes forcing the survivors to get closer and closer to each other as time goes on.
Games of Fortnite are very quick too despite how many people are involved in each match. Landing in popular areas where all the sick loot is will get you murdered quickly and if you are lucky enough to survive then the deadly storm which shrinks on you every 2 minutes or so will ensure that you're in someones face sooner rather than later. The quick nature of the game prevents it from being overly frustrating on a loss since you can pretty much instantly get into another game with very small amounts of downtime which means you can enjoy it in quick bursts or for extended periods depending on your mood and schedule which is rather nice.
The big gimmick that sets it apart from PUBG though is the building. You can an interesting situation where when the circle starts to get really small players are forced to sort of just build upwards since a more horizontal approach to combat is out of the question. I'm bad it at at time of writing but seeing the speed and skill with which players build these forts at each other to try and get the upper hand is absolutely mesmerizing and it gives quite an interesting spin on the late game combat.
It's also weirdly addicting, invoking that "just one more game" mentality that I've personally not experienced from a title since I used to play League of Legends back with my university buddies. Not only that but there's a certain thrill that comes from being within the last 5-10 survivors on the map and then getting into a fire fight which could either mean victory or a painful reset to the lobby menu.
The game also has a ton of style with it's cartoony graphics and a "battle pass" feature, bought for about £10, which allows the player to unlock a metric fuckton of cosmetics. I never usually drop money on a free game for something as inconsequential as cosmetic items but even I couldn't resist the allure of Fortnites battle pass.
If you're on the fence about it, I'd say give it a go. It's free, it's fast and it's fun and even if it doesn't hook you like it completely hooked me you'll still have a good time with it.
