‘Fortnite’ is the one game with the power to rewrite the rules (for now)
Fortnite, the video game that's become a global sensation with more than 125 million players, launched in Sept. 2017.
Epic Games celebrated that truly... ahem... epic player count in its announcement of the game's 2018-2019 season. It's one of gaming's more astonishing success stories. But "125 million" is just a number, and it undersells what's really going on here.
There's no two ways about it: Fortnite is changing an industry. It's become such a success that monolithic institutions in the video game space are being forced to blink first. And most amazing of all, it took less than a year to get here.
How it all happened
Let's unpack that timeline little further. Epic Games revealed a title called Fortnite in a trailer that debuted at the 2011 video game awards, back when they were still hosted by Spike TV. The trailer hinted at a survival-focused zombie game, with hints of Minecraft's world-shaping play wrapped in a cartoon aesthetic.
Then came a long period of silence. As we later learned, the 2011 trailer debuted just weeks after Epic cracked the idea for the game's original "Save the World" mode, the cooperative experience hinted at in the original trailer. Chatter about Fortnite surfaced in the years that followed, but it wasn't widely playable until July 2017.
There's no two ways about it: Fortnite is changing an industry.
But let's be clear: Save the World has very little to do with Fortnite's meteoric success. While Epic was getting its long-in-development game ready for release, another one was busy taking the world by storm: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
PUBG popularized a type of online game known as "battle royale." The premise is simple: 100 players are dumped into an ever-shrinking map. They all start with nothing, but the world around them provides: guns, ammo, armor, other resources. The last player or squad standing, wins.
It was a hit. There was something immediately sticky about the idea PUBG was selling, both for those who like to play games and those who like to watch them. Battle royale's mash-up of online shooting and resource-driven "survival" gameplay (think Minecraft) lent itself perfectly to player-authored stories.
To put that another way, any battle royale match is a journey, a story, unto itself. The rules never change, but the circumstances do every time. These games are so enjoyable to play and watch because each twist and turn delivers memorable moments that can be as gripping as any scripted story.
Within this framework, Epic saw an opportunity: What if we take the sprawling virtual spaces and building mechanics of Fortnite, but apply it all in the context of battle royale gameplay?
Fortnite Battle Royale nailed it. The game's eye-catching action and fast pace captivated the mainstream while its total embrace of Save the World's building tools introduced tactical tools that shook up the still-young genre. Pro streamers, celebrities, and a vast mainstream audience quickly took note and flocked to the hot new thing.
Timing matters here, too. Battle Royale came along at just the right moment, bouncing off the success of a still-new and popular idea while building on that core concept in smart ways. Epic delivered a PUBG-adjacent experience, but with a much more technically stable platform and a wider array of creativity-fueled tactical options -- both key factors in making the game as enjoyable for viewers as it is for players.
The mainstream's embrace of Fortnite brought in celebrities, of both the popular entertainment and online influencer variety. There's no one moment we can point to where Fornite Battle Royale "broke through." It's just a popular game that's been propelled ever-upward, in large part by Epic's savvy social media use and timely, headline-grabbing PR stunts.
The studio has also taken advantage of its position of power in the industry. Epic owns the Unreal Engine that powers many of the most popular games today, and it also has a long resume of its own hits (Gears of War and Infinity Blade, nbd). That reputation has surely helped get Fortnite released on every gaming platform out there, including Nintendo Switch as of E3 2018.
But that's all prologue. Epic's real wins are happening in real time right now, as E3 unfolds.
Checkmate, Fortnite
The Switch release of Fortnite brought a major revelation: Nintendo's new console allows for voice chat in Fortnite via the built-in headphone jack. That's a marked shift away from Nintendo's original, much-maligned concept for voice chat, involving your smartphone and a mobile app.
To be clear, this might be a one-off situation. We're not suggesting that Fortnite's support for voice chat-via-headphone jack is going to filter into all other online-focused Switch games. But Rocket League didn't get that accommodation from Nintendo. Neither did Minecraft. Fortnite did.
Epic's real wins are happening in real time right now, as E3 unfolds.
Then there's the situation with Sony. With the launch on Switch, Fortnite now supports cross-platform play between Xbox One, PC/Mac, Switch, and Android/iOS. Your account -- which is tied to in-game purchases like character skins and emotes -- is platform-agnostic, meaning all your stuff is available on all the gaming systems that support Fortnite, save for one: PlayStation 4.
For years now, Sony has remained committed to keeping its PlayStation ecosystem a closed one. When Microsoft announced in 2016 that Xbox developers would be allowed to create games with support for cross-platform play, Sony refused to commit.
In the years since, as questions have cropped up around Rocket League, Minecraft, and Fortnite, Sony has stuck to its position. Why shouldn't it? PlayStation 4 is the leading console on the market right now, by a wide margin. Opening the doors to cross-network play risks ruining that by giving people a way to indulge in the PlayStation experience on another platform.
The problem for Sony is that's only a bottom line-minded stance. It completely ignores the fact that there's a hunger for cross-platform play in fan communities across virtually all games. The "console wars" are so 20th century; nowadays, PlayStation users would love to face off against their friends on Xbox.
Bringing this story back to the here and now, Fortnite's launch on Switch led to a revelation: The lack of cross-platform support from Sony means that anyone who actively plays and purchases content in a PS4 version of the game can't access that content on any other platform. It's a uniquely Sony problem; play anywhere else, and all the skins, emotes, and other purchases associated with your account are accessible in all other non-PlayStation versions of the game.
Fortnite's move puts Sony in an impossible position: Stick to the unpopular but (ostensibly) more financially sound closed ecosystem, or start to open things up. And once you open up one game, can you really get away with not opening any others?
It's a choice that isn't really a choice at all, in the end. As Tuesday's immediate backlash made clear, Sony is going to have to blink.
Or maybe not.
Sony, in an utterly baffling move, is sticking to its long-held position that PlayStation Network users are happy with the service as it stands. Here's what the publisher had to say in a statement given to the BBC:
We’re always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience. Fortnite is already a huge hit with PS4 fans, offering a true free-to-play experience so gamers can jump in and play online. With 79 million PS4s sold around the world and more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we’ve built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles. We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms.
It's a wretched statement that doesn't change the fact that players are still barred from accessing their purchased content because they had the nerve to play Fortnite on PS4. More to the point, this statement ignores that completely.
UPDATED June 14, 2018 10:27 a.m. ET with Sony's statement.
Topics Fortnite Gaming Nintendo PlayStation
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
