Epic Games survival shooter game Fortnite Battle Royale is going free to play for everyone starting September 26th, not long after it was initially added to the base game.
The major hook for Fortnite Battle Royale will be the 100-Player PVP mode, which will see players surviving for as long as possible on one large map. Fortnite Battle Royale is a standalone mode based the original Fortnite game, which has its roots as a survival game which, according to Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, is a "cross between Minecraft and Left 4 Dead" as players build up structures to survive endless zombie hordes each night.
According to the official website, there will be no catches or intrusive microtransactions that will give players a competitive advantage over each other when the game goes free, only the promise of cosmetic pieces and "compendium-like content" in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gUtfBmw86Y
Some of those elements, namely the ability to quickly build structures such as walls, bridges and towers, are showcased in the Fortnite Battle Royale trailer above. We also see copious amounts of rocket launchers and destructible mayhem to boot.
Epic Games makes it clear that the regular campaign of Fortnite is still in paid early access, but new updates to the game are coming soon, including the recently announced "Block Party" mode and "spooky" October content just in time for Halloween. The publishers also announced that squads will be introduced to Fortnite Battle Royale on September 26, with the future holding further improvements to the game's weapons, environment and overall control scheme.
Fortnite Battle Royale will be available on several platforms, including the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Mac computers.
Quick Take
It was probably a wise move to make a mode like Battle Royale right now. Currently, there is a massive influx of players checking out Player Unknowns Battlegrounds, which has become the de-facto biggest game of the year, at least by Steam standards, for its Battle Royal-style gameplay. It has managed to remove DOTA 2 as the most played steam game and has had player counts comparable to Destiny 2. Fortnite dipping their toe into that arena, based on a fairly popular game from twitch streams, is a good move on Epic Games part at least.Making it free is also a key ingredient here, plus the extra reach on consoles such as the PlayStation 4 can give them a leg up in the competition.
What are your thoughts though? Looking forward to trying Fortnite Battle Royale? Leave your comments below.