Oh, what a time it was to play the game that took over the world and changed the gaming world forever. Fortnite launched a new wave of gaming that left all its competitors behind and was near untouchable for months. 

Now, it’s a shell of its former self leaving many to question how Fortnite fell off that quickly!

Fortnite was developed by Epic Games in 2017 with two game modes. Fortnite: Save the World and Fortnite: Battle Royale.

Personally, I never played or looked at any gameplay from the Save the World mode. It’s nothing compared to its popular Battle Royale game mode which I played an unhealthy amount of.

The Battle Royale game mode brings 100 players onto the battle bus that flies over the map and lands at different locations. As the game progresses, a circle shrinks the playing field until the map is enclosed, making players engage in battles until there is one person standing.

Fortnite was a simple game that allowed a wide player base of casual gamers and professional gamers an even playing field with players having to adapt to the new feature implemented in the game: the building mechanic.

Building in Fortnite allows players to build structures to defend and evade enemies. This also used to engage other players to attack each other using it for height advantage or editing through other players builds.

They also added a microtransaction product called a battle pass that allowed players to pay a certain amount of money to gain rewards and other in-game cosmetics that were sought after.

This brought Fortnite millions of dollars for each season they produced giving players the initiative to keep playing to earn their rewards for the season.

I’ll tell you what, the first five seasons of Fortnite took all my money because I wanted all the skins and emotes that I could get my hands on. This game had a full grasp on my junior and senior year of high school, along with all my friends.

We spent hours playing together, grinding away at the game to post our victory royales on our Snapchat stories. Nostalgia hits every time when those pictures pop up in my memories.

I vividly remember getting my first solo win and I even recorded and posted it on my YouTube channel! I enjoyed the game a lot, until it started to change.

The game’s skill base was widened immediately after professional players started competing in tournaments using the building feature to their advantage. I’m not the type of guy to give up on things, but when the enemy can build the Eiffel Tower in under two seconds when I can barely build a one-by-one, it gets frustrating.

I couldn’t compete against Jimmy ripping creative mode working on his building and edits every day when I’m trying to get ready for college. It changed the game for better and for worse.

I feel like with most of these games I’ve blogged about, microtransactions always find a way to take over a game, which is exactly what happened to Fortnite.

The number of skins you can buy from the collaborations with NFL, Marvel, YouTubers and so many others, have plagued games that are focusing more on money than the quality of the game.

Will I sit here and be pissed at a developer on taking advantage of the bag that they are making by releasing these items? Fuck no. If I had millions of people playing my game, I would be doing the same thing they are doing.

The problem then becomes the companies’ moral values of creating a good game rather than focusing on the money generated from the in-game purchases.

Epic Games learned their lesson when they were sued for collecting personal information from kids under 13 years old and using dark patterns to bill these same users without their consent. Settling the lawsuit with $245 million to the FTC, Fortnite wanted to change their narrative.

The game is still pumping out content that has made me hop back onto the battle bus and continue to consume their product. The game will never be like what it was, but I can confidently say that the game has influenced a lot of changes in the gaming realm and has become the blueprint for a successful game.