Eden's Reviews- Why is "Fortnite: Battle Royale" so popular?

By now you've probably heard of the multiplayer online shooter Fortnite: Battle Royale, either from a friend or from any sort of social media platform, so what exactly is it?

The free-to-play gamemode Battle Royale was released last year for Epic Games' already existing Co-op sandbox survival game, Fortnite. As a battle royale game, the gamemode features up to 100 players dropping from the unconventional "battle-bus" attempting to be the last man(or team) standing by killing other players or avoiding them, while staying withing the "Eye of the Storm", a constantly shrinking safe zone.

What makes Fornite different from other battle royales?

While the game is heavily inspired by other battle royales such as PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds, it does bring new mechanics to the table. One of the most unique aspects of Fortnite: Battle Royale is the construction element taken from the original game: players can break down most of the objects and structures to obtain materials used to build fortifications. The almost cartoon-like design of the game separates it from other shooters with a more realistic feel, such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive or the Call of Duty franchise, being more appealing to younger players, similarly with Team Fortress 2.

How did it become so popular?

Fortnite has quickly taken over the gaming industry, obtaining over 10 million players only two weeks after its release. By March 2018, the game was estimated to have over 45 million players with more people signing up every day.
The success of the game over PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a combination of multiple factors, the most important one being the free-to-play aspect, as well as the cross-platform support which makes the game easily accessible to younger audiences. Also the gamemode came out at a time when PUBG was struggling with cheaters, making the game unplayable for many people.

A large part of the game's success comes from social media exposure. Despite the game being released only a few months ago, it became the most-viewed video game on Twitch, surpassing the viewership of both League of Legends and Battlegounds. One notable twitch streamer is Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who quickly became the most popular streamer due to Fornite, with over four million followers and an average of 100.000 viewers per stream. His most popular stream,including Drake, Travis Scottand JuJu Smith-Schuster broke the previous record for most concurrent viewers outside of an eSports event, with over 635.000 people watching.

Why do so many people play this game?

To answer simply, because it's fun. It brings back a social element we've seen before with Call of Duty, bringing in players who aren't even average video game players, providing a fun experience with your friends and family.