➤ The Fortnite review 🎮

It is interesting to be able to return to talk about Fortnite in the review after the judgment expressed last July, when the Epic Games title made its debut in Early Access. It's been more than seven months since then, the game proved to be an extraordinary success and saw the introduction of new content, in particular the stand alone module Battaglia Reale, downloadable for free. It is interesting, we said, for several reasons: the first is the genesis of the game, which has been in the pipeline for so long that we feared its cancellation, rather than a launch even in Early Access; the second is that the offer has actually changed a lot, and where they have not arrived in initial numbers, the Battle Royale mode has taken care of it, which has pushed the popularity of the game to unexpected peaks, with over forty million players detected just a few weeks ago . So let's try to understand if and how much Fortnite has improved since the beginning in our updated review.

Save the world!

The original portion of Fortnite, with the Save the World! Mode, is still in place and undoubtedly constitutes the core of the experience, its thickest element, as well as that part of the game that most reflects on the free-to nature. -play of a production that, however, is not yet downloadable for free and must be paid a minimum of 39,99 euros: not really a popular price, if we consider what is in the package. Thinking a few months after launch, in fact, the structure of the title of Epic Games suggests everything except a premium connotation: to buy new characters you need the hard currency, and in the same way to speed up the progression you have to pay or grind.

The mechanics of the gameplay by now you should know them well: untangling ourselves within an interface that is still rather complicated between one stage and another, we will have to find objects and survivors, complete secondary quests and above all activate devices that, once started, will attract hordes of enemies. Our task will be to welcome them with all the weapons we have until the end of the last wave, but also and above all to switch to creation mode (Circle key) and build walls, ramps, stalking and traps that can allow us to defend the machine from the fury of the zombies. The scenarios of the Save the World mode appear unchanged, as well as the approach to the missions: in order to proceed between the various locations we will have to complete objectives that do not necessarily have to do with the completion of the battle.

This type of approach lends itself very well to the experience that the developers wanted to develop, a sort of huge sandbox in which to find yourself often and willingly to explore the same maps but with different assignments, so as to obtain the greatest possible duration without having to stuffing the game with new content: this too is a free-to-play style solution. Difficulty balancing follows this philosophy hand in hand, increasing the number and stamina of enemies as we get closer to unlocking new achievements. Well, how did Fortnite's PvE mode seem to us a few months after its launch? Still quite funny in some situations, but at the same time stingy with substantial novelties, since obviously Epic Games' effort has shifted to the most successful mode of the game, namely the ...

Battle royal

Launched for some time now, Battle Royale made a huge difference in popularity for Fortnite, projecting the title into the Olympus of the most popular PvP experiences ever. The formula on which this module is based is really simple: after choosing whether to play alone, in pairs or in a team of four people, you are catapulted onto a large island with the aim of eliminating all other users and survive to the end. Once we arrive on the ground after the parachute launch, we will have to sneak into the nearest urban agglomerations and look for weapons and objects that will make up our equipment, therefore in a completely random way: we could be lucky and immediately catch a powerful rocket launcher or a rifle. accuracy, or settle for a pistol or a small machine gun.

Recovering weapons, we will be able to choose to use an unscrupulous or conservative approach, going to look for the other players on the map to eliminate them or hiding while waiting for the ranks of our potential opponents to thin and thus aim for one of the first positions in the final ranking. Of course, the game will not allow us to "camp", and so after a few minutes we will see the sky shrink due to the well-known purple storm, which will push us to converge towards a specific area of the scenario and there to deal with who has remained in match. At first the combat system leaves something to be desired, after all we are talking about a simplified third person shooter, without covers and mechanics of a certain thickness; but the further you go, the more you realize the strategies that the Royal Battle allows you to put in place, possibly also resorting to the creation mode to generate shelters and avoid being too exposed to enemy fire. What makes the difference, however, is the incredible speed of matchmaking, which allows you to ring games (and therefore progress rather quickly, unless it is a sequence of game over without any kills carried out) one after the other, without pauses or waiting times. Thanks to a solid infrastructure, undoubtedly, but also by the huge number of online players: a virtuous circle that is undoubtedly the best value of Fortnite.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

Fortnite unlockable trophies are forty-six: many are obtained by performing certain actions for the first time, for example building a weapon or a structure, while others are linked to the completion of groups of missions for each specific scenario. In any case, you have to devote quite a few hours to the game if you want to get it all.

The inevitable progress

There is no doubt that Fortnite has improved in many respects since launch, primarily the technical one. The uncertainties of the beginnings are a distant memory, the cartoon style of the characters and settings remains very convincing and a sixty frames per second mode has also been added for the Battle Royale module, which uses a dynamic resolution and that on PlayStation 4 Pro ( the platform we tested on) works very well. From the point of view of the contents, not much has been seen, in truth: considering the fact that many users have not yet completed all the PvE missions, Epic Games wanted to avoid enriching that part of the experience except by adding elements. in the background, using their resources for the creation of the Battle Royal mode and everything that revolves around it.

This means that even the combat system has remained unchanged, with all its criticalities; in particular the extreme slipperiness of the melee attacks and the lack of emphasis on impacts, which unfortunately makes it much less satisfying to land your shots, whether it is a cooperative or competitive situation. The very intricate interface that is accessed between one mission and another is also unchanged, the one to be clear where it is possible to select the character, assign support units to the various teams, manage the projects related to the equipment and assign them to our avatar as well as unlocking new abilities using points earned on missions. A streamlining of these mechanisms could determine a further qualitative leap for the title of Epic Games, together with perhaps some tricks on the front of melee clashes.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Digital Delivery PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Official Site Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.0

Readers (146)

6.8

Your vote

Fortnite brings with it the strengths and weaknesses that had characterized the game's debut: on the one hand we have a very substantial but fundamentally repetitive PvE campaign, which uses free-to-play style solutions to manage the progression in the missions and therefore aim for the longer duration possible without concrete support in terms of content; on the other hand the guessed Royal Battle module, very simple in its mechanisms but terribly fascinating due to the effectiveness and speed of a matchmaking that allows you to catapult yourself into a game in a matter of seconds, trying to get a good placement with a some luck and a bit of strategy.