Games

Fortnite’s creators have made, over the past year, an unlikely pivot, transforming the beleaguered, long-delayed open-world game into bona fide multiplayer sensation. Its free-to-play mode, Battle Royale, a colorful entry in the survival genre popularized by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is arguably the most popular game in the world right now. There are other companies that could have made its original Save The World mode. In fact, Epic cribbed its playbook from some of the most successful free-to-play games around. But only Epic Games could have transitioned from that lackluster launch to create Battle Royale. They were the right company, with the right vision and at just the right time to make it big.

Just under a year ago I was sitting in a hotel conference room at E3’s judge’s week receiving a presentation on Epic’s Fortnite. The hybrid building game had first been announced during the Video Game Awards in 2011 and, by 2017 its troubled development history was very nearly a joke.

“This isn’t Fortnite’s first rodeo,” said executive producer Zak Phelps, and the journalists in the room gave a polite chuckle. “It’s not even its second rodeo. It might not even be it’s third rodeo. At Epic we love our ideas, and sometimes we get so excited about our ideas that we announce it three weeks after we’ve even had the idea. Or even before we’ve made the game, which was the case with Fortnite.”

Fortnite screens
Fortnite, circa 2012. Epic Games
The game that they showed, subtitled Save the World, was not fun — and played nothing like Battle Royale. A few months later, after some 40 hours playing Save The World ahead of release for review, I remained unconvinced that it could succeed. It was equal parts repetitive and tedious, pretty to look at but painful to play for long periods of time. Last week, returning to the game for another half-dozen hours, I found the experience of Save The World to be largely unchanged.

But Battle Royale, released as a free-to-play mode on Sept. 26, 2017, nearly two months after Save the World, is a completely different story.

Jumping into Battle Royale, I found nearly everything that was promised in the original Save The World mode and then some. There was exploration and building, the ability to play with my friends, tension and the opportunity for mastery. Changing my playstyle was as simple as picking up a different weapon, and the joy of unlocking little perks along the way made it all worthwhile.

And now, surprisingly, I can play it on my phone.

But here’s the thing: There’s nothing surprising about this. Nothing at all. Epic was built to make something like Fortnite Battle Royale. All they had to do was flip the switch, to make the decision to plow ahead full bore toward the vision.

Epic previously built its identity around Gears of War in the Xbox 360. After selling the series to Microsoft, the company started experimenting with other projects in corners of the gaming space that were pointing toward the future. Fortnite borrowed from Minecraft, the new Unreal Tournament targeted esports, Paragon hoped to emulate the success of games like Dota 2 and League of Legends. For years, Epic has been waiting, like a surfer, to catch the right wave. With Battle Royale, they did it.