Epic's co-op build-o-shooter Fortnite hits early access
Will be free-to-play later
Fortnite [official site], the base-building zombie-blaster from Epic Games, launched into paid early access today. Epic are best known for competitive megamurder games like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War but Fortnite is a lot friendlier. It's a cooperative class-based shooter where players scavenge for supplies, craft items, and build traps and bases to fend off zombies who fancy a nibble on their noggin. Epic plan to make Fortnite free-to-play when it's properly finished and launched in 2018 but if you want to mash monsters with your mates maintenant, you can pay to help Epic test it.
So! There are zombies. They are not your friends. They wish to murder you and heck, you wish the same on them. So off you go, scavenging for supplies to craft weapons, traps, and items as well as build a homebase. And then you re-kill the zombies. To use everyone's favourite form of crude comparison: it's Orcs Must Die meets Minecraft down DayZ's local.
It looks a little something like this:
We've not had a look at Fortnite in yonks but we did recently gab a little with Epic about how usability testing helped shape it.
Fortnite early access costs £34.99/39,99€/$39.99 through Epic and their own Launcher. The full free-to-play launch is expected some time in 2018. If you do buy in during early access, Epic will throw in-game 'loot packs' at you. F2P guff, yeah?
Gosh, it's been almost six years since Epic originally announced Fortnite.