When people hear about the game Fortnite, they think of first of its PvP gamemode, Battle Royale, but that’s not what I’ve been playing recently. Instead, I will discuss about its other story-based game mode, Save the World. Fortnite’s Save the World is a PvE campaign story mode from the developer Epic Games. The game started as a PvE campaign as a matter of fact, and It was on sale a few weeks ago, which is why I managed to get a copy. Well enough about this and let me discuss about the Game.
The Game’s introduction is performed quite well. We get a cutscene of someone trying to run for his life as being chased by zombies, or in this case, ‘Husks’. We get introduced to many characters in the game, and we are given the role of a commander. After a very smooth transition towards gameplay, we learn that we mainly control a ‘Hero’. We start in a simple mine, learning to use the trusty pickaxe, learn about scavenging for resources, building, gunfight, abilities, and more. I liked how as you progress towards the scene you’re put in, you heard thought communication devices what the other characters are saying to you and gives you a sense of the story. The Art style is quite nice. It’s a cartoony world with the use of some simple hexagonal shapes in props, character bones and such. Once you finish a mission you get sent to the main Menu. This is where things get a bit complicated.
The game’s menu felt overwhelming, as there is a lot of information about things to learn about the game’s mechanics and resources. There are a lot of RPG troupes seen in the game, as you can level up your Heroes, Gun Schematics, Survivors, Defenders, your skill tree, your research tree, and more. It was quite overwhelming as there are a lot of different items that requires upgrading, but after playing for around 14+ hours, I’ve managed to understand completely. The game also offers you some type of collection book, as you can trade in your heroes, guns, survivors, etc to the book for in-game rewards. Mostly for the campaign mode, but they also offer you the premium currency, ‘V-bucks’ which you can use for both PvE and PvP. Premium currency is something that has been seen in many games, many which can be controversial. How does Fortnite’s Save the World handle such thing?
Upon further exploration in the main menu, it is noticeable that there are microtransactions found in this game, however, they are not required for progress for the game, as you can obtain some of the premium currency daily by doing daily quests the game offers. I think of this as a nice business tactic. Giving the players the option to either play and progress at a decent haste, or those who feel slow, can get the other option to progress. I personally have been quite far in the story without spending any real-life money, so the game’s difficult curve is quite balanced yet. There are mobile game strategies shown as well, such as the factor of waiting. There is no known way to bypass the waiting time as the only method to obtain research points, is by waiting. Players will always get stronger when they come back to play the game after a while, giving players no choice but to eventually to stop playing the game and comeback later. This design aspect must have been thought out for the health of the players, which I greatly appreciate. Now let me discuss the gameplay a bit more.
There are many different missions, such as placing a device to control the storm, save survivors, destroy encampments, repair shelters, etc., but all follow mostly the same main core gameplay of Tower-defense genre: You build protection, and you fight a horde of zombies until time runs out. The gameplay can get quite repetitive, as it uses sometimes, the same map layouts we have been familiar already, and will bore some players out. But what I find smart, is that the developers keep luring players, such as myself, to keep playing because they keep rewarding progress handsomely, including the premium currency. There are quite a few loading times as well, which can affect those who have lower powered systems, which can lead to some problems for those who are ready to jump right into the action.
As of today, I am still playing the game, so there might still be more things to learn, but as of my judgement goes, this is a decent game. It does have some flaws, and some updates can cause some issues, such as some models being completely messed up, or constant crashes, but as the game states, it’s still in its BETA stage, as it is expected to have some issues. I have not found any Game-breaking exploits or bugs as of right now, and in overall, I believe the game could use some improves on how to handle its world. Maybe look on how immersive the Borderlands series is, as they have a big world filled with many things to explore before heading out to another zone. I am a fan of the art style, and the story is quite interesting. The reward system for player is quite generous, which leads for replay ability. I will maybe adopt their reward system in one of my future projects.
Thank you for reading this entry!
