Last month they hit us with Batman: Arkham Knight, and now this month Game Informer is showing off the latest from Gears of Wars developer Epic Games: Fortnite.
So, what is Fortnite? Well, in a nutshell, it's what Minecraft and Team Fortress would look like if they had a free to play baby. Introduced as an "action building game," players are tasked with becoming a hero and surviving "the storm," a mysterious whirlwind that is dropping monsters into the world.
There's apparently a big emphasis on multiplayer in this new title as well, and all of the players will be making their forts together. It seems like you'll have a "home base" kind of fort that will be your most secure, but if you are in a pinch far away from home you can build another one on the fly.
Supplies are going to need to be foraged for, much like Minecraft. Materials can then be used to build up your base, or to close the portals that the monsters are coming through. Closing the portals appears to essentially involve finding one and closing it inside a big glass and metal box.
The building mechanics look very easy to use based off of the gameplay video (which is currently un-embeddable from GI, so you'll have to follow through the link for that one). Players can start building a wall at any time and easily interconnect them. The walls also have sections that can easily be removed. So if you made a standard 3x3 brick wall but want a door, you can just remove a couple of the sections of the wall and place a door. There will definitely be a more in-depth preview of exactly how that works, but for now it looks fairly easy even without a detailed explanation.
Epic also stressed that while this will be a free to play game, you won't need to pay to succeed. "Our game is definitely not pay-to-win," Fortnite producer Roger Collum told GI. They referenced wanting to follow a League of Legends-like model, where paying for stuff can help make you better but ultimately can't beat just playing the game a ton.
There was really quite a bit in GI's short three-minute video, so definitely check it out, and then check the Fortnite reveal video below and let us know what you think of the very un-Gears-like Epic Games project.
