This is fast-paced, aggressive and revolutionary
The PROLIFERATION of the Battle Royale genre in the past few months has been nothing short of revolutionary.
The multiplayer shooter status-quo has long since been dictated by industry heavyweights such as Call of Duty, Battlefield and Counter-Strike, whose blueprint of ‘run, shoot, die, respawn, rinse-and-repeat’ has barely been challenged by any potential usurpers throughout the past two decades.
In 2013, the first progenitor of the Battle Royale genre emerged as a mod for the popular Arma/DayZ game.
Developed by Irish man Brendan Greene, the mod would eventually become the standalone game known as the wildly popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Seemingly developed in tandem with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is Epic’s Battle Royale game mode variation tacked onto their wholly underwhelming Fortnite title.
But, where Fortnite disappoints, Fortnite: Battle Royale excels. While PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds bears all of the trappings of a slow, tactical military/survival shooter, Fortnite is a fast-paced, almost cartoonish, game world brimming with loot and teeming with aggressive players all chasing that elusive victory.
The premise of Fortnite is simple, and one that is shared with all Battle Royale variants: You and 99 other players are dropped on to an island.
Every few minutes, a circle denoting the boundary of a violent storm closes in, forcing players in to a single location on the map.
What sets Fortnite apart from its peers, however, is the revolutionary and insanely fast-paced building mechanics. Running and shooting is simply not enough in Fortnite: you must also master the art of building defensive forts in the blink of an eye, while also planning your attack on the player who wants that victory just as bad as you do.
Figuring out the building is half the battle, the other half is efficient and careful resource management. Fortnite affords you only five slots for items, so your frenzied looting must be reasoned. Luckily, the game is well balanced in its current state and you will rarely be at a loss for planning, no matter what variation of loot you find.
Fortnite: Battle Royale with other games in this genre truly feels like a renaissance for shooting games. Don’t be surprised if the next Call of Duty or Battlefield title finds some way to incorporate this new blueprint into their next AAA title.