Fortnite has grown bigger and faster than even Epic Games could have ever predicted. Their free-to-play Battle Royale mode peaked at 3.4 million concurrent users last month and is consistently in the Top 3 most watched games on Twitch. Their original Save The World version has not received nearly the same hype but Fortnite developers are undoubtedly hoping to change that.
Back in November, Epic revealed new updates to Save The World including the Event Currency Store, Hero Rarity Evolution, Quest Maps, Mini Bosses, and more which were rolled out through December and January. In their most recent patch this month, Save The World released a St. Patrick's Day themed questline and skin. However, another game update in March left players seriously salty and demanding a refund.
Epic Games made the decision to change the stats of the Dragon Weapons available in Save The World without mentioning it to players. This unannounced change caused a wave of backlash and prompted developers to address the matter on their official message boards. "We messed up, we changed the perks on the Dragon Weapons and didn’t tell you we were doing it," they said. Epic went on to say that they felt the balance of the perks were way off and they were looking to balance them out but realized they should have communicated that to their player base.
One of the biggest changes Fortnite fans would like to see is for Save The World to become available for free just like Battle Royale. In a recent interview, Fortnite Lead Systems Designer Eric Williamson said,“We’re still looking at a 2018 free release for ‘Save the World.’ Epic tried to be really generous with the content in Early Access packs, and there have been events and items that exclusive to this Early Access period already! We appreciate everyone who’s played and supported the game so far, and our philosophy is to do everything we can to show that to our players.”
When Fortnite launched in July of 2017, the zombie survival game had already built a ton of buzz around it. The game was first teased way back in 2011 at the Spike Video Game Awards and went through several delays and beta tests before finally being released. Though the game sold over 1 million copies, with half of those sales taking place before the game was even released, their player base has been slowly dropping over the last seven months. Fortnite fans, what do you think needs to happen for Save The World to be sustainable in the gaming world?
