Fortnite: The Evolution from Survival Horror to Battle Royale

Ever uploaded. This is one of the greatest moments in Fortnite history. And this is what Fortnite looks like today. But how did we get here today? I’m going to be doing a detailed breakdown of the entire story of Fortnite. So let’s go all the way back to the beginning of Fortnite, Battle Royale. Ladies and gentlemen, grab your popcorn because we are starting on Saturday, December 10th of 2011. More specifically at an event called the Video Game Awards here, Epic Games announced the creation of their newest game, Fortnite. And to give you an idea of how different things were back then, here’s a small clip of the original trailer from that day almost 13 years ago.

Anyway, no, the original trailer shows a completely different Fortnite from the one we have today. This version of Fortnite seems to be a horror survival game, sort of a mix of call of Duty, Zombies and Minecraft, both games being hugely popular at this time. The look of the game was, well, very different. It had a darker, grittier style, and there was no Spider Man doing the gritty with Shenley.

In 2012, Epic did a panel at the San Diego Comic Con event where they announced a 2013 release date for the much anticipated game. This, however, got pushed back again and again until it was July 25th of 2017 when Fortnite finally entered its early access mode. This was now referred to as Fortnite Save the World Moon was met with mixed reviews. And by 2018, the zombie survival drama was not some thing that gamers were looking for. Not to mention you actually had to pay for this version of Fortnite, which is unlike the Battle Royale version, which would end up being 3.

Epic knew that Fortnite wasn’t as successful as they would hope that it be. So they decided to look into other ways to keep players interested and attract new players. That’s when epic launched a game mode that would not just change the alternate Epic Games world they created, but our entire world as we know it. And it was called Fortnite Battle Royale.

On September 26th of 2017, Epic launched Fortnite Battle Royale. The concept was very simple and still is to this day. 100 players enter an arena and only one can leave. At least when you’re playing solos, that is, they start on the battle bus and skydive onto the island. And once players are on the ground, they gather loot, build forts and fight off enemies until they are the last one standing, all while players are running from the ever shrinking.