Epic used Fortnite OG to lure gamers again to a really completely different recreation

You would say that Fortnite is coming into a brand new part. With the launch of Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Pageant, the sport is now greater than a well-liked battle royale — it’s a platform designed to accommodate a lot of completely different sorts of experiences. That shift was preceded by an occasion that introduced the sport again to its roots with Fortnite OG, which returned to the unique battle royale map alongside basic weapons and automobiles. And that was a really intentional technique from Epic Video games.

In accordance with Epic’s government VP Saxs Persson, the launch of Fortnite OG was meant to create a stir forward of this rollout of recent video games. “We had a aim of re-activating a number of our 500 million accounts that perhaps weren’t enjoying Fortnite anymore, and thought Fortnite was simply battle royale,” he explains. “You want them to concentrate to see that is truly very completely different than what we had been six years in the past. OG was step one.” It definitely appears to have labored in that regard; Epic beforehand mentioned that Fortnite had 100 million gamers in November, the sport’s finest month ever.

The second step is that this week’s rollout of these three Epic-developed video games, every aimed toward a distinct viewers. It’s nonetheless too early to inform if any of them shall be successful, however early indicators are encouraging. On the time of this writing, almost 2 million individuals had been enjoying Lego Fortnite, whereas greater than 800,000 had been enjoying Fortnite Pageant, each of which had topped the normal battle royale. Persson says the aim isn’t essentially to surpass the sport’s present principal mode, although.

“The last word aim is that that’s attainable [for another game to overtake battle royale],” he says. “We’re not constructing one thing with the concept that battle royale will simply fall by the wayside. That workforce is as wholesome because it’s ever been. This isn’t a zero sum recreation; we count on the ecosystem to develop.”