For reading 5 minutes.
On July 25, 2017, Epic Games released Fortnite to Early Access, and in 4 years the game has amassed a gigantic army of fans. In May 2020, the company announced on Twitter how many people are playing Fortnight – the number of registered gamers has exceeded 350 million. And every day their number continues to grow.
Fortnite general info: description
The game was designated by the developers as Battle Royal, a game that combines a cooperative survival simulator and Last Man Standing. But it is impossible to limit Fortnight to this concept alone. In it you can find elements and Plants vs Zombies, only people play the role of plants. It requires building bases with traps, like in Borderlands. But most of all the game resembles Tower Defens, only with a projection from a third person.
In Fortnite, players on their own or in a corporation with 99 more participants get to the scene, and they are faced with the task: after landing, move to the center of the location, collecting as many weapons and useful artifacts as possible along the way.
Unlike many other multiplayer companies, there is only one map for each season.
Fortnite is somewhat reminiscent of PUBG or Apex Legends, but it has a feature that distinguishes it from its counterparts. Here, the characters not only fight, but also have the opportunity to build forts and equip shelters, set traps. To succeed in a mission, one skill of shooting will not be enough, you will have to develop other skills. The goal is to stay alive.
There are several game modes in Fortnite:
- Battle Royal. The goal of the mission is to stay alive. Each season, a new map is introduced and a fresh theme is determined that sets the tone for the entire scenario of the game. Inside the mode, there is an additional game space – Royal Party – here you can take a break from battles and have fun. At the service of gamers – boat races, passing an obstacle course, as well as performances of stars.
- Save the World – the mode allows you to complete missions and improve your skill. In addition, here you can get game artifacts that will be useful in the main mode. You can fight on your own, with friends or other members of the Fortnite community.
- Creative – creative mode allows you to create games of any complexity, where the action will develop according to its own rules. The gamer can invite friends to his space or visit locations created by other players.
Fortnite is currently available on Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PS consoles, on PC and in the Android app (you can download the game from the Samsung Galaxy store). After the introduction of direct purchases into the game, the game was removed from the App Store. Apple felt that Epic Game had violated store rules by doing so. Therefore, it is now impossible to install on a mobile device iOS. For the same reason, Fortnite has disappeared from Google Play as well.
Popularity of the game
Initially, few people could have imagined that Fortnight would become so popular. It was originally one of many games in which a team of humans explores the world during the day, gathers resources and builds fortifications, and fights off zombies at night. The turning point came when, in response to the growing appeal of PUBG, Epic Games released their Battle Royale based on the engine, combat mechanics, and character models used by competitors.
The bet was right, and Fortnite soon took the lead in the gaming industry. Although at first the gameplay was damp, but soon the project gained momentum. This led Epic Games to decide to focus entirely on Fortnight, even though they had to shut down Paragon to do so.
The main advantage of Fortnite, which explains its popularity, is its low barriers to entry. You only need to invest in the initial project for protection from monsters. But in the future, you can fight in the Royal Battle for almost free.
There are small payments that allow you to buy a suit or speed up the accumulation of skills, but they are all small.
One of the advantages of Fortnight attracting more and more supporters to the game is the excellent support from the manufacturer. Improvements concern all areas, both in terms of technical implementation and in terms of content. The combat capabilities are constantly expanding, new weapons appear, the locations of battles are increasing.
The number of people who play Fortnight
Now the game has 250 million registered accounts, of which more than 120 million are active. There are many accumulative services on the network that allow you to estimate how many online players are in the game right now. According to information from statistical servers, the average number ranges from 4.2-5.5 million people. The number of gamers from 150 countries of the world increases if championships are held.
Interesting statistics provided by Epic Games regarding the information on which platform Fortnight fans play most often. So, in the first place are game consoles. Mobile apps are the second most attractive – the number of downloads has already exceeded 140 million, even though the owners of iOS devices are not currently included in the target audience. The share of PC users is less than 15%.
Broadcasts and views
For the Fortnight Cups and Championships, Epic Games has started streaming on You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, and Fortnite.com/Watch. Here you can watch battles in real-time mode.
The game itself is also running a picture-in-picture broadcast. So you can watch the World Cup broadcasts without interrupting the passage.