Fortnite – Standard Founder’s Pack Review

Fortnite is an amazing game developed and published by Epic Games that I just must recommend! It is an online third-person shooter RPG with building elements where players must complete many different missions to reclaim and rebuild a homeland that has been taken over by monsters known as Husks. Players as a team must explore the map looking for many different resources to build traps, weapons, and a base to defeat the final section of the mission. All of this takes place in a beautifully stylised environment with characters to match these. The soundtrack that accompanies this game is also equally as beautiful along with the brilliant voice acting that is found throughout the whole game. This game combines many great elements from different games all into one, such as the fun building aspects of sandbox games such as Minecraft with the shooter elements of Plants vs Zombies all rolled into one.

The game begins with the player gaining an understanding of the storyline and why they will be pursuing the quest to try and reclaim the homeland. Once the game loads it is clear to see that an easy to follow and understand interface has been created which is clear to all players. The only negative now is that the chat function and some options can have slight lag spikes, however that isn’t a huge negative to this game and is understandable with the game being in the ‘Early Access’ stage of development. The tutorial which follows has been very well thought out and introduces players to all the aspects that are important throughout the game. These aspects such as trap building, levelling survivors and defenders are reinforced throughout the first chunk of levels also. Throughout each of the loading screens there are also helpful tips that players may not know without putting hours of effort into the game or researching aspects beforehand, this is a very helpful addition to the game.

With this game being a role-playing game there comes a need for variety in skill trees, abilities, characters, weapons, and traps. Fornite does exactly this, with a huge variety in all of these. There are 8 different vast skill trees that can be explored and tailored to the players wants and needs, these are split into two different categories however, 4 research trees (gradual time-based progression) and 4 skill trees (point awarded for completing various missions and levelling up your commander).

All the classes that can be found in the game have unique characteristics which make players want to explore and pick depending on their playstyle, I originally began as a constructor, meaning that I would need to build and reinforce bases whilst my team would be more lead towards gathering resources and providing the firepower. Currently there are four different classes that players can choose from; Constructors, Ninjas, Outlanders, and Soldiers, each of course being used for their specific abilities and statistics.

As this game is an online role-playing game, it requires a strong player base that plays consistently to allow for progression of players of all levels, therefore there are currently rewards for returning every day, both for normal players and founders of the game. The longer the chain of days played the better the rewards that players can receive, so this incentive works well to get players at least thinking about the game every day, if not logging in and completing some of the daily missions that can be found too. Although players are encouraged to spend a large amount of time playing this game there are also expeditions which can also encourage players to take some time off from the game and send their heroes out looking for resources when not online, these can provide small boosts and help with progression without having to grind those extra few hours.

However, there are some issues when it comes to this game regarding, lag spikes, connection issues and crashes of the game when loading and in gameplay. Currently I am personally getting around a crash every hour or two of gameplay as of the latest patch on 12^th August 2017. So hopefully these issues are resolved when the full release of the game hits.

With the game being aimed as a free to play release in the coming future, there is of course an importance on micro-transactions in the game. Players are given the chance to purchase Loot Llamas which can be used to gain the cards needed to upgrade your overall power level. Without making these purchases I found that this game would eventually have a large amount of grinding that would need to take place to reach the higher tiers of levels and gear that can be obtained. Currently the game has many different early access versions which are available for purchase, each of these coming with a higher tier of starting equipment to help you get into some of the mid-level content that little bit more quickly. After realising I was going to enjoy this game hugely and eventually put many hours into this I decided I would go all out and purchase the most expensive edition of the game to help support the development of the game as I love every aspect of it now.

Currently on the PlayStation Store the different packs are retailing for £32.99 for the Standard Founder’s Pack, £49.99 for the Deluxe Founder’s Pack, £73.99 for the Super Deluxe Founder’s Pack and finally £119.99 for the Limited-Edition Founder’s Pack. I would say that costing for these are currently fair as the rewards that come alongside being able to support this game are superb, so if you have the cash to purchase any of these packs I would suggest doing so. Some of the higher-end packs also contain regular standard editions of the game that can be shared with friends also so that they can join you fighting back the Horde.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.