Epic Games’ upcoming PC-based scavenge and fight zombie title Fortnite is under the same development team responsible for Gears of War.
Set to be the first game developed by Epic Games that will make use of the powerful new Unreal Engine 4, Fortnite is set in a zombie apocalypse and will be centered on players scavenging for resources in the day and fighting zombie hordes by night.
Publicly revealed back in December 2011, Fortnite’s inspiration for a background story comes from a long-drawn subject of a world that’s now filled with the walking dead making it impossible for any survivors to scavenge for supplies to survive the apocalypse. Basically, another survival-horror title with cartoony effects.
Speaking at the Develop Conference back in July (scripted by Eurogamer), Epic founder and programming legend Tim Sweeney expressed his vision for future titles that will be coming out of the company in the next 10 years with enhanced photo-realistic graphics.
Sweeney, credited for being the co-creator of the Unreal game engine, confirmed at that time that Epic was working on an unannounced "triple-A shooter" alongside PC online game Fortnite, as well as a number of smaller projects.
“Now we're building several games at different scales. We're building Fortnite, a PC online game which is a fun, sort of Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead. It's a 35-person team. It's not aiming to beat Call of Duty in terms of graphics. It's more of a Pixar art style and a limited project in scope, just aimed at fun as opposed to massive breakthroughs in scale,” Sweeney stated.
The game has already been tagged as a product off the inspiration garnered from the massively hit Minecraft. Talking to Joystiq back in December 2011, Epic lead Cliff Bleszinski also confirmed that the game won’t have any “dudebros” similar to games like the ones in the Gears of War series.
“There's no dudebros in it," Bleszinski stated. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, right? But creatively for the team, Gears has been amazing for us. But it's fun to kind of stretch our wings and do something that's a little different from the usual."
"It was a project that was pitched internally. I was a staunch supporter of the idea, because the game is just like a no-brainer -- I was like yes."
Later on Twitter, Epic’s Lee Perry compared the game to Minecraft by stating: “Minecraft was an inspiration for sure” and also “I see lots of questions asking if #fortnite is freeform construction. It is. It’s not scripted or just boarding up existing structures.”
“It stands to reason if you can build a world, anything can be destroyed. It’s not scripted or just boarding up existing structures.”
The gameplay mechanic for Fortnite is a survival sandbox experience that has been tweaked to support co-op experience. As mentioned earlier, the basic gameplay deals with players surviving a zombie apocalypse by scavenging for materials and gear, building protective structures alongside defending themselves and their settlement against the zombie hordes that come out at night.
Fortnite is currently planned for a release on PC and is slated for an unknown release in 2013.