Fortnite

 PC
User Score
3.5

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 1688 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 381 out of 1688
  2. Mixed: 260 out of 1688
  3. Negative: 1,047 out of 1688

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  1. Tacik
    Sep 17, 2017
    4
    I have been keeping an eye on this game ever since the first trailer came out. I am deeply disappointed by the freemium model that is heavily incentivizing paying. I am always the first one of our friend group to try a new game, and I'm the one that recommends a fun game to everyone he plays with. This game is fun at first, but you quickly approach a paywall and I find that despicable. II have been keeping an eye on this game ever since the first trailer came out. I am deeply disappointed by the freemium model that is heavily incentivizing paying. I am always the first one of our friend group to try a new game, and I'm the one that recommends a fun game to everyone he plays with. This game is fun at first, but you quickly approach a paywall and I find that despicable. I will not recommend this game to any of my friends, nor will I ever spend a dime on it, unless it changes its model.

    If the payment model changes or at least gets a fine adjustment, then I will give it another go. Untill then I am very disappointed. I would gladly spend money on microtransactions IF they were reasonable. Consumables, cosmetics etc. Right now its a "buy to pay more" model, going straight for the "freemium pay or grind like a loser and make your life worthless" model. Time is a precious commodity, and this games is attempting to GRAB your time OR cash as hard as it can. Look at guild wars, overwatch, or cs:go even! Those are a few of many models that are perfectly fine, and we all enjoy them. This is way too intrusive. The community screams, most youtube videos say that, but instead of changing it to something fair, they just tweak it.

    We have limited time in life guys, spend it wisely on things that are plain fun, and aren't trying to drag you in by addiction and suck you dry.    … Expand
  2. Anvil31
    Sep 5, 2017
    1
    Wait until it releases as a f2p and even then play for a few weeks before opening your wallet, odds are you'll lose interest within a month. A mission consists of 20 minutes spent beating on trees and cars before you can even hope to enjoy 7 minutes of actual game play... rinse and repeat because that's all you're going to do.
  3. MetaShawn
    Sep 5, 2017
    2
    Name: Fortnite
    Genre: RNG Slot Machine (Llama) Simulator
    Age: EVERYONE (with Credit Card) Plot: DEFEND THE FORT! by collecting everything that you don't need, destroying and wrecking everything usually for no reason and defend THE FORT with your online buddies who usually are just on the level to **** from everything. Do the process more than 3 times, over and over again aaaand you're    Name: Fortnite
    Genre: RNG Slot Machine (Llama) Simulator
    Age: EVERYONE (with Credit Card)
    Plot: DEFEND THE FORT! by collecting everything that you don't need, destroying and wrecking everything usually for no reason and defend THE FORT with your online buddies who usually are just on the level to **** from everything. Do the process more than 3 times, over and over again aaaand you're done, that's it! For everything else prepare you Credit Card!    … Expand
  4. KazuyaYuza
    Sep 2, 2017
    2
    I got more then 100 hours in the game, so I can kinda build up an opinion.

    Yes, fortnite is fun. And yes the idea behind it is even better. But when not playing it with friends or something it really falls off fast. Mainly to the lack of variety. It's fun in the beginning but after a while it just is the same thing over and over again. The only thing that changes is the heroes and    I got more then 100 hours in the game, so I can kinda build up an opinion.

    Yes, fortnite is fun. And yes the idea behind it is even better.

    But when not playing it with friends or something it really falls off fast. Mainly to the lack of variety. It's fun in the beginning but after a while it just is the same thing over and over again. The only thing that changes is the heroes and the weapons you use. For which you are kinda almost forces to put money into to make the rng gods give you at least something you like. Cuz what's the point in playing with heroes or weapons that just doesn't fit one.

    And yes, the latest update gives new stuff. But the gamemode is just the same as everything before, Just 4hours instead of 15. And the rewards are really not better than the short ones.

    Maybe if this game gets a lot of new content, or the Llamas are easier to obtain the game might become more enjoyable. But for now it's just grinding till die or buy Llamas and try your luck.

    Maybe if I didn't play those 100 hours solo, I might have had a different vision. But it's good to see it from this side too imo.

    The rating of 2 just represents is the amount of hope I got left for this game    … Expand
  5. Tyrantbreaker
    Sep 2, 2017
    0
    Pay to win, but the in-game purchases are bugged and often just not delivered. And they won't even refund it. Had to go through paypal instead, after customer service took several weeks to send a couple of emails first asking me to submit a bug report (already had submitted two), and then to tell me they would neither be returning the items (which were clearly shown on stream) or refundPay to win, but the in-game purchases are bugged and often just not delivered. And they won't even refund it. Had to go through paypal instead, after customer service took several weeks to send a couple of emails first asking me to submit a bug report (already had submitted two), and then to tell me they would neither be returning the items (which were clearly shown on stream) or refund the purchases. Scummy company.… Expand
  6. Hippystank
    Sep 1, 2017
    1
    Do not support this **** the game is really good they could have done so much with this, they could have released it as a 60 dollar game and done fantastic because the game is really good.

    This game is the absolute worst with it's f2p system. This is a gambling system it is not designed for the consumer it is designed for them to milk money. AVOID this game unless they come clean about    Do not support this **** the game is really good they could have done so much with this, they could have released it as a 60 dollar game and done fantastic because the game is really good.

    This game is the absolute worst with it's f2p system. This is a gambling system it is not designed for the consumer it is designed for them to milk money. AVOID this game unless they come clean about the whole thing, admit they were wrong to do this system. Change the entire system and move away from trying to milk players.

    If you and a group of friends have no problem dropping fat stacks of cash in the game to progress then by all means get it, this is the perfect throw your money away for nothing simulator.    … Expand
  7. boxanata
    Aug 23, 2017
    0
    Paywalls, paywalls everywhere! Until they decide to give up on milking players wallets, avoid like the plague. It's just not worth it. It's a good game that's fallen victim to greed.
  8. Gunmars
    Aug 19, 2017
    3
    First off I purchased the top founders edition with the hopes that the devs actually wanted to live up to their promise of helping them "mold the game early with your feedback." That sounded dandy, game was fun for the first 30 hours until you got into the guy of the game. The main issue is they do not reward enough V bucks or Llamas. For those who are lost Loot llamas are RNG machines andFirst off I purchased the top founders edition with the hopes that the devs actually wanted to live up to their promise of helping them "mold the game early with your feedback." That sounded dandy, game was fun for the first 30 hours until you got into the guy of the game. The main issue is they do not reward enough V bucks or Llamas. For those who are lost Loot llamas are RNG machines and V bucks are the in game currency to purchase them. Epic and FortNite has received endless negative feedback for this lottery model and many went in with hopes this would be only a temporary model or tweaked drastically with founders feedback. It was all great until Tim Sweeney basically outright said "this is the way we wanted the game, we will not change it and if you don't like it, leave."

    Pros - Tight shooting mechanics
    Mostly open ended base building
    Decent difficulty progression
    Varied classes that need tweaked

    Cons- Unfinished zones if game is rushed
    Lottery loot llama is terrible
    Very grindy
    Devs preached openness but refuse to change a universally hated Llama/progression system

    Take it from me, spent too much money on empty promises and not severely regret it after Tim Sweeneys comments on the not changing certain aspects.    … Expand
  9. Ratchetix
    Aug 18, 2017
    0
    What got me into this game is the Base building, husk's and "loot" . The trailer with all the loot on ground got me pumped up after buying and playing the game it's complete opposite. for me no loot drop in game play it's just only lama pack's(loot box).
  10. vxshadowflarexv
    Aug 18, 2017
    0
    Gatcha machine based progression (gambling). Cannot recommend in it's current state. Core game is fun, but scummy business practices otherwise heavily marr a fun product to the point where all my friends have stopped playing for the same reasons as I stated above.
  11. tastycake
    Aug 18, 2017
    0
    devs ignore community and impose really slimy tactics in order to grab money. avoid this game, epic ruined this possible gem and gave us a pile of dung.
  12. SkeletorTX
    Aug 18, 2017
    2
    Not worth the cost for early access. All the F2P pay walls are there, so you can only enjoy about the first 10 hours of the game before it becomes a frustrating grind that isn't worth the effort. Wait until it's truly F2P and then try it.
  13. olievlekje
    Aug 16, 2017
    0
    while the concept and gameplay is fun almost mandatory micro transactions to progress in this game made me subtract 10 points out of 10.
    this whole game is one cash grab from the developers, unstable game loads of crashes, frustrating weapon decay system that breaks your weapons faster than you can farm maths for a new one.
    an upgrade system that screams GIVE ME MONEY
  14. MachoNacho
    Aug 12, 2017
    1
    This game had a ton of potential until they bolted on a bunch of dirty f2p garbage on to it. Want to get better gear? Swipe that credit card. A new hero? Better pay up. Sure you can get XP from grinding missions, but you need loot boxes to get people or items to put the XP in to. The game is so stingy with the necessary currency to buy those loot boxes that coughing up more money seemsThis game had a ton of potential until they bolted on a bunch of dirty f2p garbage on to it. Want to get better gear? Swipe that credit card. A new hero? Better pay up. Sure you can get XP from grinding missions, but you need loot boxes to get people or items to put the XP in to. The game is so stingy with the necessary currency to buy those loot boxes that coughing up more money seems like the only way to make a reasonable amount of progress. It's sad to see a game that could have been amazing get dragged down by such a terrible business model. Don't bother with this game.… Expand
  15. Stonado
    Aug 11, 2017
    0
    The most shaddy buisness model ever seen. You have to pay to progress in this game. There are people spending hundreds of € and not geting close to the class/weapons they want. it is realy expensive to buy the in game currency, you cannot play what you desire, you must play what the RNG tells you too (unless you want to get stuck on zone 1 then you can play whatever u feel like.) If youThe most shaddy buisness model ever seen. You have to pay to progress in this game. There are people spending hundreds of € and not geting close to the class/weapons they want. it is realy expensive to buy the in game currency, you cannot play what you desire, you must play what the RNG tells you too (unless you want to get stuck on zone 1 then you can play whatever u feel like.) If you ever played diablo , imagine the farm you need for a weapon with perfect roles, ok this game is that but here you must pay to get a chance at those roles,and its not only the weapon, it is the survivors, defenders, heros, traps and xp packs to be able to level all of the above. it is a gigantic pool of items, so you can see how easy it will be to get something you actualy want. (PAID) by all means avoid this game. worst mistake in my gaming life (since 90s)… Expand
  16. phatal808
    Aug 9, 2017
    3
    The game is great if you have $1000 handy to spend on buying all your gear but you will need luck as well. I quit after a week and spent $300. Just not worth it.
  17. Bambo
    Aug 9, 2017
    10
    Great combination of building base and zombie defense game. I only wish completion time of each game can be shorted, some of the games lasting 40-50 minutes are too much.
  18. arkbird
    Aug 9, 2017
    7
    A great game that sadly, was ruined by a pay to progress loot based system. If they improve progression by making you get stronger faster, and figure out a better way to get you good guns/trap/heroes that does not involve loot boxes this game would easily be a 10.
  19. Tushie
    Aug 9, 2017
    0
    This game is great but the entire unlock process is pay to win. You LITERALLY cannot progress in this game without spending real life money. The game does a great job at hiding this during the first two world stages but once you get past these you are stuck in the mud.

    If I could get a refund on this game I would, it has so much potential but is destroyed by greedy companies.
  20. astro11
    Aug 9, 2017
    0
    What to say here that we don't know already..

    A very good game in terms of gamplay, graphic and style with the worst Pay-to-even-breath business model ever created in the gaming history. DO NOT BUY A SINGLE FOUNDER PACK. It will grant you the ability to login only but soon you'll need to buy hundreds of RNG chests in the store to progress, Only chests provide loot in this game, and    What to say here that we don't know already..

    A very good game in terms of gamplay, graphic and style with the worst Pay-to-even-breath business model ever created in the gaming history.

    DO NOT BUY A SINGLE FOUNDER PACK. It will grant you the ability to login only but soon you'll need to buy hundreds of RNG chests in the store to progress, Only chests provide loot in this game, and loot is huge and random. Imagine to play diablo 3 where a single item can drop in thousands of different variations and you farm costantly to find that one with the best attributes. Here it is the same but with a bigger loot table and ONLY CHESTS IN THE SHOP GIVE LOOT.

    Every single aspect is behind a RNG chest, even your main character. In Alpha main characters were fixed and you had the ability to increase their level, etc. Lately they decided to milk money on them too making them cards like everything else, so you need to buy chests in the store to even drop high quality main heroes to use.

    STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. IT'S A SCAM AND NOTHING ELSE!    … Expand
  21. ParisTilton
    Aug 9, 2017
    0
    This game has the potential to be great. In my eyes, at least 8/10 rating just because of how unique it is, its humor, and just the smoothness of the game.

    However, at its current state, I would not recommend it to ANY of my friends. Bad loot system: It's a game about finding loot, except the most desirable loot are behind a gambling system (think loot boxes). A player will only    This game has the potential to be great. In my eyes, at least 8/10 rating just because of how unique it is, its humor, and just the smoothness of the game.

    However, at its current state, I would not recommend it to ANY of my friends.

    Bad loot system:

    It's a game about finding loot, except the most desirable loot are behind a gambling system (think loot boxes). A player will only be able to get about 50vbucks (on average), this equates to half a loot box a day. While players who choose to spend money, can buy any amount of loot boxes as they so desire at $1 a pop. I could be higher "power level" than a player who has played for months, within 1-5 days if I spend enough cash. However, if you don't care how strong other players are, there are also OTHER bad implications of this system.

    The game has 4 general classes with about 6-8 subclasses beneath that. On top of that, each subclass can be different in rarity (commons and rares have about half the abilities of legendaries). So if you were to want to play the ninja class, you may not be able to. It would depend on what loot you got because heroes are loot too! And some may argue that you can easily find a common hero of any class. But let me tell you, the weakness of a common hero versus legendary/mythic will be significant very quickly.

    Poor Co-op

    In a team game, where you defend a fort TOGETHER, it would make sense that you are rewarded for team work. Not here. This game rewards selfish play. There will be many games where your teammates won't help you complete the mission. Either off doing their own side missions, afking, or just looking for chests. So it is not uncommon for one player to have to spend their resources completing the mission while the scumbags who don't help, get exp for the mission (same as the person who spent all their resources), gets whatever look they found while you were doing the mission, and gets to save/build up their resources because they were leeching off of you. Also, people who decide to be "griefers" can actually destroy the core of your base and make everyone lose the game on their whim. That's INSANE! There are numerous other ways to ruin a game too, but there are too many to list and VERY easy to do.

    Insane number of bugs

    By insane, I mean insane. This game is in early access (although it really wasn't marketed that way), but there have been so many bugs, that many players haven't been able to play for weeks. There was a bug on release week that many players couldn't play. Once they fixed that, there was performance bugs the following weeks where players still couldn't play. After their big bug fix patch earlier this week, many players lost their bases that they spent hours working on AND there were new bugs not allowing players to play! If you need a source, you can look at the game's subreddit. Every day, there is a new bug complaint about how PS4, xBox, or PC players can't play the game (although mostly console players).

    There are a sh*t ton more complaints. The only evidence you need is to look at the Fortnite Subreddit or forums. The majority of posts are about people being EXTREMELY upset and many players quitting the game. A recent poll on the subreddit showed that 48% of those who answered do not play anymore or only log in for daily rewards. This is only weeks after the initial release!

    However, you do not need to take my word for it, most video reviews and gaming reviews will tell you very similar to what I have. My best advice:

    Wait 6 months to see if the developers are actually listening to their players. The game will be free then and if improves are implemented, then the game would be worth checking out by then. But for now, buying the game for any amount of money is basically the same as paying some random guy to slap you.    … Expand
  22. KeyroTono
    Aug 9, 2017
    1
    If you like spending money, this is the game for you. Otherwise, wait. Now, I'm not a big fan of early access, steam sort of ruined that for me. But Fortnite? I felt like this was a game I would be happy with supporting its early access release. I was wrong. Sure, its not a full game yet so theres going to be some changes, but what you cant change is a broken promise. The devs originallyIf you like spending money, this is the game for you. Otherwise, wait. Now, I'm not a big fan of early access, steam sort of ruined that for me. But Fortnite? I felt like this was a game I would be happy with supporting its early access release. I was wrong. Sure, its not a full game yet so theres going to be some changes, but what you cant change is a broken promise. The devs originally said they didnt want their game to me a pay to win, but thanks to the good old company Tencent (they love them some free to play, pay to win and have 40% ownership of Fortnite), the loot system is just trash. You work hard and are rewarded with little to show for it. Its a great game, and I would love to recommend it, but I cant.… Expand
  23. TTVdiddlydale
    Aug 9, 2017
    7
    Fortnite is a good game underneath all of the misdirected features, there's some genuinely good mechanics and as a line it does push a good bargain, as of the time of this review the game is a paid product (for the base game).

    You have to pay to get into the Early Access, and by doing so you get some bonuses such as founders items etc. And overall the gameplay is fun and relaxing.    Fortnite is a good game underneath all of the misdirected features, there's some genuinely good mechanics and as a line it does push a good bargain, as of the time of this review the game is a paid product (for the base game).

    You have to pay to get into the Early Access, and by doing so you get some bonuses such as founders items etc. And overall the gameplay is fun and relaxing.

    Right now the gameplay is generally speaking built for a F2P model with P2W mechanics built alongside, which in the current climate doesn't make that much sense considering the majority of players right now have payed an upfront price for the game.

    I would have expected more leniency on those who had paid for the game but if I am honest it doesn't aggravate me as much as it does with others, mainly because I am happy to grind my way along the games progression, I am also happy to understand that it doesn't take a day to complete the game.

    If I could compare a model to the system that Fortnite will use it would be that of Hearthstone, you can play every day and get free cards and decks, or you can pay to get a bunch of free cards.

    Right now as it stands that price can be VERY steep if you go the paid route.

    But here's the thing, although you might have some very good cards it actually doesn't work in your favour very well as a P2W system, let me give you an example.

    You have 4 cards of same type of varying different qualities, lets say very bad, bad, good, very good. Now we take those different qualities and we try to level them up. Well the very bad quality is taking around 200 points per level, the bad quality is around 500 points per level etc etc (you get the point).

    The only way to get any serious points is by playing matches, you see where I'm going with this, you can't actually use your high level cards effectively without also grinding out the game.

    It's not like World of Tanks where you can buy a premium tank/ammo and off you go, the base game cards and equipment all have to be levelled via grinding the game out.

    So you can level your cards, you also have to level yourself (The Commander) which again is ONLY done by grinding the game out, the other routes of getting levels are so marginal they barely count, if you go the route of filling out your collection book you will get around 10 points for a quarter filled book.

    Fortnite really doesn't give much in terms of options when it comes to levelling you just have to do the quests and missions, you can also recycle/retire old or duplicate schematics, survivors and heroes which will give more xp for their respective areas but it's very minimal in the grand scheme of things.

    In the end this game is about grinding, it doesn't even matter entirely if you do drop the occasional splash of money it will have the same effect as any randomly generated card game, you may or may not get what you want, I think this is what annoy's most P2W players out there if I'm frank about it as it's more of a gamble rather than a dead set "I'm now better".

    To me it's definitely fun and the game doesn't really start till you get past the tutorial and early starting missions, it doesn't challenge you early game which makes sense because once you start getting towards around the level 15 mark it starts to pick up.

    And trust me when I say level 15 is less than a quarter of the game, its probably around 10% of the game.

    For me I treat it like a fun bit of gaming to do every day for 30 minutes, I log in get my rewards or missions that I set over the course of the evening (you can send heroes away to collect stuff for 16 hours etc) and ill do a few quests and missions, if a friend is around we can do it together.

    A note on the other reviewers (just in general) I see a lot of players who clearly haven't gone past the early gameplay, I would warn those of you who know what kind of game this is (a Hearthstone card game with tower defense and loot mechanics) give it a chance, if you aren't bothered about paying wait for the F2P and just grind past the early game.

    I'll give some common complaints/answers:

    I haven't got any high level cards, paid or not paid.
    ^^
    Yeah because in any game you jump into the fun bit is jumping to the end? Come on folks we all love shiny's but if you got them consistently they wouldn't be end game content anymore, you have to get the end game content by playing through it and the only way to get consistent high level cards is to trade in lower value cards.

    The loot in levels is low level.
    ^^
    Yeah it gets higher level as you get higher level, if you consider after 20 or so hours you are still very low level, you start to get how much grind it takes to have decent drops, for example as a low level after completing the first set of Commander levels (i.e. stage 1) you only just start getting blue's drop.

    Overall I would say if you are on the fence just wait it out, it will be F2P soon enough.    … Expand
  24. Krisnick28
    Aug 9, 2017
    1
    Several things about this game. So lets get to the points.

    * The game is published by EA *It will be a f2p game in 2018 *It is in early access right now (but you have to buy to play) * There are constant crashes and bugs with the game right now. Constant as in 4-5 in a 2 hour period your game will crash does not matter if it is PC,PS4 or Xbox. *There are different editions    Several things about this game. So lets get to the points.

    * The game is published by EA

    *It will be a f2p game in 2018

    *It is in early access right now (but you have to buy to play)

    * There are constant crashes and bugs with the game right now. Constant as in 4-5 in a 2 hour period your game will crash does not matter if it is PC,PS4 or Xbox.

    *There are different editions of the game and the prices are $40,$60,$90,$150 after the $150 a choice of spending and additional $100 for the ultimate upgrade.

    * There were and are and will be resets of maps and other things in the game due to development. So be prepared to rage.

    * There was cross play between consoles and PC. But apparently that was a "bug" and the devs then removed the ability for players to cross play.

    *It has a cash shop

    *Grinding is the key part of the game other key part being the cash shop

    I have played many f2p games over the years. But those games did not try to hide what they were. They knew what type of pay model and gaming model they were. Fornite on the other hand is pure greed. The game itself is focused on the cash shop in order to get better gear and heroes. You cannot get better gear or heroes unless you spend money in the cash shop on loot boxes. You might be asking, do they at least drop good gear in game at a lower rate. No they don't drop better gear. The loot boxes them selves are horribly unbalanced in terms of getting legendary's. Take it from a guy who spent hundreds of dollars on the game and only got one legendary gun. One just one.

    The game play itself is fun, in between the bugs and crashes. But after a while you start to understand the game is about pure grinding. Everything in the game needs to be grinded for. Guns,heroes, survivors traps and resources. The items needed to upgrade and move up are a bit rare and makes the grind even worse. You will rinse and repeat doing the same thing. Gather resources build your fort and defend against waves of zombies. The zombies rarely ever change in terms of looks of design even at higher levels.

    I cannot recommend this game. It is pure cash grab. All they want is money. They have the nerve to want people to pay for an unfinished game still being developed. Still having resets. But the cash shop is in full working order and takes all kinds of payment methods. For over priced loot boxes that give you 95% commons and uncommons no matter how much you spend. If you cannot spend money in the cash shop. Then good luck at higher lvls with your weak weapons and traps to defend your fort. You will be tickling the zombies and running out of ammo fighting those bullet sponges.

    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY!!! STAY AWAY!!    … Expand
  25. Captain_n0etics
    Aug 9, 2017
    4
    Greed kills the fun of this game. If the devs can pull their heads out into fresh air then maybe I'll come back, but they've already hurt their playerbase enough to kill any game
  26. Monx
    Aug 9, 2017
    2
    The game has the potential to be the next minecraft in the gaming world, however they ruined it with their marketing style, i'm not going to go into how it works, but due to the nature of it, it makes your progression really slow as a person who doesn't wanna pay money.

    also keep in mind that they don't have a refund policy, so if you ask for a refund, they may or may not accept it.    The game has the potential to be the next minecraft in the gaming world, however they ruined it with their marketing style, i'm not going to go into how it works, but due to the nature of it, it makes your progression really slow as a person who doesn't wanna pay money.

    also keep in mind that they don't have a refund policy, so if you ask for a refund, they may or may not accept it.

    can't recommend it, wait for it to go f2p if you wanna play it.    … Expand
  27. Amiculi
    Aug 9, 2017
    2
    A decent game is hiding somewhere under layers and layers of scummy F2P pay and time walls and slot-machine level real-money gambling. Stay far far away until Epic fixes their systems.
  28. ni66ausername
    Aug 8, 2017
    0
    This is a great game under a horrible freemium mobile type of game garbage. Sad to see so much potential wasted, they really have to completely revamp a lot of things. I would NOT recommend buying this at all in its current state.
  29. Kenshin13850
    Aug 8, 2017
    3
    TLDR: Not a Gearbox game. Fortnite has a terrible, predatory, monetization-based progression scheme surrounding a potentially fun set of core mechanics. It discourages cooperation and has unbearable amounts of grind involved. Do not buy this game. Do not support the development of games using this model. Spend your money somewhere else. If you must get it, then play it with a group ofTLDR: Not a Gearbox game. Fortnite has a terrible, predatory, monetization-based progression scheme surrounding a potentially fun set of core mechanics. It discourages cooperation and has unbearable amounts of grind involved. Do not buy this game. Do not support the development of games using this model. Spend your money somewhere else. If you must get it, then play it with a group of friends and try not to out level each other. There's no meaningful way to catch up.

    First things first: Gearbox has nothing to do with this game. Gearbox published the physical discs, but this game was developed and produced by Epic Games, which was bought by Chinese Tencent during production. Gearbox is to blame for supporting this terrible game model, but it's not their fault that it's this way.

    Second: The game is early access, but it deserves all the criticism it's getting. It's on store shelves, you can pay to play it now, so it's out there. Epic games isn't a small studio either and the game has been in alpha for two years. This is likely close to a finished product.

    The actual review:
    The core of this game is pretty exciting: fort style zombie slaying action. Players are supposed to work together to build a fort and protect an objective against a zombie horde. When that happens, it's a pretty sweet game. The problem is that the game doesn't encourage that kind of behavior and there is a massive monetization model laid over top of it.

    Progression is gated behind a number of mechanisms - which are either paywalls or time mechanics reminiscent of mobile games. There are multiple, independent systems required to progress in this game: 4 types of XP (commander, weapons/traps, heroes, survivors), 4 different core mechanics (weapons, traps, heroes, survivors), a skill tree (based on commander XP), and a research tree (gated by a passive time mechanic). There's nothing wrong with complicated mechanics, but the problem is that progressing on most of these fronts requires purchasing a reward known as a loot llama. You can only buy the lowest level llama, but it has a chance of upgrading to a tier 2 or tier 3 llama with better rewards - rewards you can't get by playing the game. The only way to get a llama is to buy one with 100 V-bucks, which you can either pay for with real cash or farm 50 V-bucks a day doing your single daily. That means you only get tangible progress every other day, regardless of how many hours you actually put into the game. The rewards from llamas are completely RNG though, so most llamas are actually worthless anyways. This model feeds on gambling addiction to milk players willing to spend cash on rewards they might never see (or maybe they'll get right away).

    Fortnite also punishes cooperation. Want to play with your lower level friends? Well, you won't get XP for playing with them, you get leveled down so you need to waste more materials and durability to have an impact, but because you're in a lower level area, you won't get the materials you need to replace the ones you use. Okay, what about playing with other people at your level? Because of the resource grind, many players (~20-30%) aren't interested in cooperating and instead spend the entire 20 minute games farming materials solo and ignoring the objective. Players interested in building have to spend huge periods of time farming just because other players aren't willing to share their hard earned materials with them.

    This game has so much potential, but it's being squandered under monetization and poor player incentives. Hopefully the dev team will change things during the early access period, but the alpha players have been making these demands for two years already. I doubt we'll see any real improvements. Vote with your money, don't buy this game. Don't let Epic Games get away with this kind of model in the US.    … Expand
  30. Unworthy
    Aug 7, 2017
    3
    Fortnite is what happens when a game with vision gets ruined by gambling. While advertised as a survival/tower defense hybrid, it's barely anything of the sort. It's really a gambling & grinding game. The vast majority of your time is spent gathering supplies and crafting items that go away after a round.

    When you watch the trailer, you're tricked into believing this is a game like    Fortnite is what happens when a game with vision gets ruined by gambling. While advertised as a survival/tower defense hybrid, it's barely anything of the sort. It's really a gambling & grinding game. The vast majority of your time is spent gathering supplies and crafting items that go away after a round.

    When you watch the trailer, you're tricked into believing this is a game like Minecraft or 7 Days to Die or Ark, but it's not. It's actually more like a third-person Diablo clone, where you go through repetitive random missions doing the same thing over and over again (mine, scavenge, shoot some zombies at the end). Not only is 80% of your time spent on scavenging and only 10% building and then 10% fighting, *everything you build disappears after the round*. Your namesake fort is not permanent. It only lasts about 5 minutes, and then you have to play another mission, spend another 30-40 minutes gathering, and then build another 5-minute fort. You don't get your resources back either.

    That's the gameplay, which by itself is already overly grindy and tedious. Add in a gamble-to-progress and deck-building system and it soon becomes obvious that the gameplay was completely sacrificed in order to make room for a mobile-like pay-to-progress system. When you play the missions, the only loot you get are some crafting supplies and low-durability weapons that last only a few minutes of active use. To get weapons and traps that you can keep, you have to gamble with loot boxes ($1 each, or you can earn them in game at the rate of maybe 3-4 a week) and pray that you get "schematics", which let you craft them with the resources you've scavenged. Even the crafted weapons have limited durability. To give you an idea of the progression system, this is how you actually gain power:

    * Gamble for epic, legendary, or mythic ranged weapon schematics and then level them up by recycling other schematics. Keep in mind that even rarity is not a guarantee of quality, because the same item could spawn with different random bonuses, so even a legendary could potentially have bad bonuses.

    * Gamble for epic+ trap schematics and then level up them by recycling other schematics.

    * Gather enough crafting materials by repeating missions and quests over and over in order to craft any of the above.

    * Gamble for epic+ hero schematics and level them up by recycling other heroes. Although you only play one hero at a time, you can choose up to 2 other heroes to add to your "squad" to provide passive bonuses, like a health or armor boost. You have to level up the other heroes in your squad, too, in order to maximize your bonuses.

    * Gamble for epic+ "survivor" schematics and level them up by recycling other survivors. The survivors do not appear in game at all, they just give you passive bonuses like your extra squad heroes. However, whereas you only need three heroes, you need several DOZEN survivors, each assigned to a squad like "The Gadgeteers" or "The Engineers" or "Fireteam Alpha". You have to mix and match survivor jobs AND personalities to maximize their effect, and that's in addition to the rarity system and the level system. By estimation, you'll probably need several hundred dollars of llamas to get anywhere near completion... or if you're playing for free, probably several lifetimes. Epic+ survivors drop very, very rarely.

    * Wait real-world time for research points to accrue, and then spend them on really boring upgrades (like + a few points to health or damage). To make matters worse, research points are also used to "transform" weapons (Fortnite's equivalent of the Horadric Cube in Diablo, which lets you transform unwanted items into something else). So you have to wait for several days worth of research to either gain some tiny passive bonus or use it to transform several of your items into ONE random item.

    * Gain XP and skill points to level up your skill tree (different from research), which is a mix of passive buffs and the occasional active skill. Something as simple as melee heavy attacks is buried deep in the tree, accessible only after 10+ hours of XP grind. Other much-needed game mechanics, such as the ability to recycle or transform items, are also buried in the skill tree. After 20 hours played, I still have not yet finished the first tier of the skill tree. It reminds me of Path of Exile, and not in a good way... when active game mechanics (i.e., the skills and abilities that add variety and gameplay challenge) are locked behind stupid passive buffs, there's only one real explanation... they want to lengthen the process to keep you paying.

    * There's also a "Collection Book" that requires you to sacrifice schematics and personnel for rewards. Once you sacrifice something, they're gone forever and you have to re-collect it from a llama if you want to keep using it. This is on top of the already insane need for recycling and gambling.

    Fortnite is a great idea sadly destroyed by greed.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

56
#56 Best PC Game of 2017
4
#4 Most Discussed PC Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. PC Games
    Sep 9, 2018
    80
    Although it has some flaws and typical free-to-play mannerisms, Fortnite is fun, both in co-op and in PvP.
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  2. Game Informer
    Jul 19, 2018
    95
    Fortnite is an ever-shifting entity, but strong footing has solidified it as a verified phenomenon with fast, fun gameplay and ubiquitous reach. Anyone can play it and have a great time, and although Save the World might get grindy and shotgun climb-and-dives might get a little tiresome, there’s real magic here along with the promise of more in the months and years to come.
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  3. Jeuxvideo.com
    Jun 3, 2018
    80
    Whether we're talking aesthetics or the accessibility of its gameplay, all is good for Fortnite, which provides a beautiful vision of what Battle Royale should be.
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