The untold truth of Fortnite [Battle Royale]

Fortnite: Battle Royale is one of the hottest video games on the planet — very few games manage to rack up 10 million players in their first two weeks on the market. But despite appearances, it didn't appear from out of nowhere. Fortnite has been in development for over half a decade, and it's been subject all kinds of controversies, delays, and disputes along the way. These are some of the game's highest (and lowest) moments so far — and the game isn't even finished yet. Expect more shenanigans to follow.

Epic vs. the 14-year-old gamer

With so many players, cheating in Fortnite isn't just likely — it's inevitable. To keep the experience fair, Epic banned thousands of cheaters in October, 2017. That's not all: Epic also sued two players associated with Addicted Cheats, a website where people can pay for help winning Fortnite matches. But then they went further. A second round of lawsuits targeted cheaters themselves, including a 14-year-old boy.

Epic claims Caleb "Sky Orbit" Rogers was targeted both because he cheated, but also for uploading YouTube videos promoting and explaining those cheats. Rogers didn't stop there either. When Epic tried to have YouTube remove the videos, Rogers filed a takedown appeal against Epic. It's not clear how much Epic is seeking in damages, but some of the other Fortnite lawsuits go up to $150,000 in potential penalties. That's not the kind of money most teens have lying around.

Now, Rogers is completely, 100% guilty. He admitted as much on YouTube, explaining he "just cheat[s] for fun." He also defended himself by pointing out that he's hardly the only cheater in Fortnite. Still, targeting a middle-schooler isn't a great look, and the optics got even worse after Rogers' mother issued a lengthy and well-argued rebuttal to Epic's suit.

All this begs the question: what's worse? Getting lectured by a kid's mom for being a bully? Or being the kid whose mom yells at game companies when he gets in trouble? Sounds like a two-way tie for last.

But Epic isn't all about suing fans. Sometimes, it's inspired by them.

A fan creation becomes official...maybe

In January, 2018, Fortnite: Battle Royale received a massive update that overhauled the game's map. Fortnite: Battle Royale's mayhem-filled landmass didn't get bigger, but new locations like Snobby Shores, Shifty Shafts, Tilted Towers, and Junk Junction gave sections of the map more distinct personalities, as well as new places to loot much-needed weapons and supplies.

But when the new map appeared, a small section looked awfully familiar to members of the Fortnite community. A little while before Fortnite's map update, Reddit user blorfie posted a proposal for a new location called Haunted Hills, complete with a crudely sketched map and designated loot points. A member of Epic's staff replied, complimenting blorfie on the work, and blorfie gave permission to the Fortnite team to use those ideas free-of-charge. When the map update launched a little while later, guess what one of the new locations was called? That's right: Haunted Hills.

Now, Haunted Hills' in-game implementation isn't very close to blorfie's proposal, and while Epic acknowledges that its development team "did see the name and liked it," that doesn't mean they're directly acknowledging the fan's concept. At the very least, however, that's one heck of a coincidence, and it makes that section of Fortnite's map just a little bit more memorable.

Fortnite footie

If you need a break from all the Fortnite mayhem, don't quit the game. Simply head over to the small hub west of Twisted Towers, where you can find an indoor soccer field. Not only is the pitch filled with some weapons that should come in handy, but there's a ball, too, which you can whack into the goals with your pickaxe. Enlist a few friends (or nearby opponents), and it's easy to put together a pick-up soccer game. Confetti drops when one side scores a goal, and thanks a recent patch, using a basketball instead of a soccer ball no longer counts as a point. Thank goodness.

Soccer probably won't become Fortnite's next big spin-off, but if you can convince everyone to lay off of the trigger for a few minutes, it's a pretty good time. Just be careful: there's nothing stopping your opponents, your teammates, or any wayward spectators from whipping out their guns and opening fire while you play, so keep an eye on your surroundings at all times, and make sure that you're not in a game with a bunch of sore losers. Some people take soccer very seriously, and in the topsy-turvy world of Fortnite, you never know what's going to happen.

The same can be said for the creation of the game, too…

Fortnite: an Epic rip-off of other games

Fortnite's Battle Royale spin-off is directly inspired by the mega-hit PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, or PUBG to its fans. That's no secret, either: Fortnite creative director Donald Mustard admitted as much in September 2017, right before the ultra-popular game mode arrived on PCs around the world. "We love Battle Royale games like PUBG and thought Fortnite would make a great foundation for our own version," Mustard wrote on the game's official blog.

But while Fortnite's Battle Royale mode gets all the press, the game wasn't always a Battlegrounds knock-off. At the Develop Conference in 2013, Epic Games' co-founder Tim Sweeny described the core game as "Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead." That's because it features four character classes, zombie-like creatures known as husks, and an emphasis on building strong, durable bases to defend against the shuffling hordes. When he said "Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead," Sweeny wasn't kidding around.

The swipes don't stop there. Critics compared Fortnite's co-op gameplay to Orcs Must Die! 2 , while games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Destiny, convinced Epic to give Fortnite a similar "games as a service" development model. Basically, Fortnite started as a mash-up of the most popular games in existence.