With PUBG reinventing the Multiplayer battle royale genre, Fortnite BR provides a more stylistic faster paced alternative.
The concept for Fortnite BR is a rather standard battle royale modes, you jump out of an aircraft onto a post-apocalyptic island, explore and loot various locations, question why everyone conveniently has such high quantities of guns and ammunition in their homes, run to the everchanging centre of the shrinking map and try to kill as many of the other 99 players until you’re the undisputed king of the apocalypse.
Where Epic Games manages to differentiate Fortnite is with the inclusion of building mechanics and a greater emphasis of “arcadey” aspects.
The building mechanics of Forntite BR are one of the few aspects of the base game to carry over into the stand-alone mode. Allowing players can construct fortresses to give them an edge in battle, this does give Fortnite BR’s gameplay a unique mechanic and a more dynamic playstyle overall. However, I did grow annoyed that this would inevitably turn the endgame into a castle wall sniping contest.
There is much more of a “run and gun” style of Fortnite in comparison to similar titles. My initial experience with Fortnite was overly tactical. Following most real-life rules, I hoped that hiding until the final few would allow me an opportunistic sweep into victory. After 20 minutes of waiting, I made my arrival to the scene, final 5, pistol in hand, simply to be annihilated in one shot by Robo-cop.
After several games of not having much fun, I decided to give “run and gun” a go. Yes, I died a lot more, but the game became infinitely more interesting in the progress, on the odd occasion I didn’t die I benefitted from looting the dead and enjoying enacting my vengeance on the ill-prepared inexperienced players making the same mistakes as I once did. Circle of life.
With Fortnite BR you have to embrace the sense of pace. For some this may imply that skill does not play an important role in the outcome of games, whilst this style of gameplay does make it friendlier to newcomers, there is plenty of nuanced tips and tricks to be learned to encourage investment from any gamer.
Fortnite BR’s cartoonish art style looks great, and the game runs smoothly on PS4.
By Adam Ridgley