Popular co-op survival game, Fortnite, has taken the gaming world by storm in just a short amount of time. Everyone from Wall Street hustlers to gamers who play in their mom’s basement to professional sports players is playing Fortnite, and they are letting everyone know about it through social media. Over the past few months, Fortnite streaming has dominated Youtube’s trending content—and rightfully so. For anyone interested in gaming, I urge you all to watch some of these gameplay videos because survival games are definitely fun to play and even more interesting to watch. Due to its sudden popularity, Fortnite has been hyped up as the game of the century, whereas in reality, it is essentially just like any other battle royale game.

The concept of battle royale games is survival, Hunger Games style. A large number of players are dropped onto a large playing field which slowly reduces in size in due to a storm, and the players fight till death. This format has become not only current gamers’ favorite style of games, but also attractive to new gamers. In this category, other games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Rules of Survival, and H1Z1 have dominated, but Fortnite’s recent surge in popularity can be primarily attributed to the fact that this game is free to play. Epic Games strategically made Fortnite free on all devices from iPhones to PC to consoles, which has helped Epic Games expand their user base.

Adding to the free-to-play aspect, Fortnite boasts a few unique gameplay features like customizability and building. Unlike other battle royale games, Fortnite’s comic-like characters and map allow for the customization of skins and weapons, which incentivizes players to compete against one another for bragging rights. Arguably the most impressive part of the game is the ability to instantly build structures. Like Minecraft, players can hack around collecting different materials. When ready, players can build structures to be used for various things like a temporary shelter or protection from enemies.

Even with these cool features, Fortnite still does not live up to its hype. While some may enjoy Fortnite’s comic-like characteristics, I find it to be the game’s biggest weakness. The battle royale concept began with an aspect of realism: picking up real weapons, hopping in real vehicles, and killing players in a similar fashion to realistic shooter games. All of these features added to the excitement of playing a survival game, because it is based off a real concept. Fortnite, however drops these features, offering fewer weapons, less specs on weapons, and only one map to play on. Combined with this loss of realism, Fortnite’s cartoon-esque graphics make it even harder to play.

Games like PUBG provide the solution to all of these issues in Fortnite. PUBG offers multiple maps, good graphics, realistic gameplay, and an abundance of weapons, which is why I believe for the more serious and advanced gamer, PUBG is for sure the way to go. For someone more new to the gaming scene, Fortnite may be more appealing primarily because it’s free to play.

If you are at or near any public gathering of some sort these days, chances are you will hear someone talking about Fortnite. Simply put, Fortnite does not deserve this type of popularity. Although an enjoyable game, this type of hype in the gaming world only belongs to classics like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and NBA 2K.

Rating: 3.5/5