What is up with Fortnite?

 Even the giants must quiver

In full honesty I have never been too much of a Fortnite head myself, just as I've never quite gravitated towards online ecosystems in general. I never Prestiged at a single COD game (Although I got very close in COD 4 for Wii) I never hit the active level cap in an MMO (Although again, very close in ESO) and I've never stuck with a Battle Royale for more than a month. I don't know what it is. Maybe I just can't stand the idea of playing the same map over and over trying to squeeze new experiences out of the same basic building blocks. Does that make me a reductionist? Perhaps. And of course it means that I haven't felt the regular cycle of Fortnite content bouncing around the already jumbled mess of my subconscious. Although that hasn't made me a total clueless dunce as to its going ons. Indeed, I could hardly have my finger on the trigger of the industry without feeling the rumblings of that lumbering titan as it moves. Which is why I can speak from an informed position when I say that Fortnite isn't making the waves it once did, I want to examine why that is and speculate if there is anything the game can do to shoot up its profile once more. 

First off it's a given; Fortnite ain't the headline grabbing apocalyptic event stealer it once was. Former Zodiac killer Senator Ted Cruise even aimed at video games in a recent unfocused rant about the causes of gun violence, and didn't even think to mention its name! Do you think that would have happened three or four years back? Hell no, the news networks of America and Britain would have been flooded with special segments about the dangers of the ultra violent cartoon shooter game. I know because three years ago those were the sorts of specials floating around. But today Fortnite has fallen so far from the public zeitgeist as the laymen's singular point-of-reference for all things gaming that it's no longer the go-to badguy in the cultural war against fictional violence! What have the alarmists and fear mongers to villainize now? Elden Ring? They don't even know what that is!

But we can be more numerical about this, by using that most typical of general interest gauging tools; Google Trends. Popular cultural items get googled often and so we can assess the active popularity of Fortnite by checking it's graph, seeing it had the most search traffic around October 2019, and see how the subsequent spikes in popularity, usually occurring around big events in Fortnite history, are shrinking in their size. The last spike at the end of 2021 was exactly half the size of the all time peak, which isn't exactly a death knell to hear but it does indicate a trend downwards in popularity that hasn't yet steadied itself out. The decline is very gradual given the sheer weight of the franchise we're talking about here, but it's consistent; Fortnite can't score the headlines like it used to. (I should note, however, that the baseline of searches outside of big events has remained remarkably stagnant. The game isn't heading to dropping off the face of the earth anytime soon.)

And it's not as though Fortnite hasn't had it's share of huge events in the time since it's heyday. There were the live concerts with huge stars, the movie premiers and even several big season and chapter end moments. In fact, have you figured out what big event caused the biggest surge in Fortnite search traffic in October 2019? I give you a clue, it's really obvious when you stop and think about it. It was the big Chapter 1 end when the game shut it's self off for a couple of days and scared kids were left scouring the Internet wondering if Fortnite had died before their very eyes. A funny time to be sure, but is that really the highlight of their publicity stunts they want to go down in history most for? Not hiring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson to star as one of their characters, not having a Ariana Grande concert play in their game? Not having a cameo crossover with the biggest and highest grossing film ever made, at the time? Nope, trolling the kids takes the podium position apparently.

What has happened since within the game itself? Irrelevant of gaffes and stunts, how has the gameplay of Fortnite remained competitive? By keeping competitive within their own studio, as far as I can tell. Epic Games constantly rewrites the very foundational blocks of the Fortnite core game loop in order to keep the cycle fresh and somewhat exciting for those who stick with it, the perfect development cycle that a live service demands. (Which we see so many wannabe pretenders totally fail at; Halo Infinite!) Mech suits get swapped out for fishing gameplay, large sections of the established map get reworked or removed altogether, new gimmicks are shoved into the mix; playing Fortnite is like delving into the active mind of an utterly indecisive perfectionist, and that rollercoaster ride is difficult to get tired off entirely. And yet somehow people still do, but I think there's still some methods and avenues left for the development team to explore in order to properly confront and combat that Fortnite lethargy.

For one, and I know how this sounds but bear with me, I think Fortnite should pull back a little on all of the crossover promotions. I know, I know; those are the stamps of premium exclusivity that single out Fortnite from the crowd! But there's nothing to prove anymore from the Epic Games team. Fortnite has crossed over with every major fictional brand on the Earth and become truly mainstream, there's no need to establish nor maintain appearances; and nowadays it feels like the bulk of Fortnite's online coverage is dominated by an exhausting and unexhaustive parade of crossover deals. It's obnoxious. And whatsmore, it takes away effort from development into real content that might spruce up the experience in a substantial way that will make those who have long since put down the controller turn around and go "Oh, what's going on there then?" 

So what sort of crazy proclamation can I throw out and declare is Fortnite's singular path to success? Well nothing concrete, I can't claim to be the industry whisperer by any stretch of the imagination, but I wonder at what a total seismic shift to the playstyle of Fortnite might achieve. What if, through significant map reworks and content redesigns, Fortnite was to host, if not a whole chapter than at least a single season, itself in first person? Seems drastic, but it's something different and would change the flow of the game substantially. They might throw in a more casual death match style gamemode, if that concept doesn't sound too trite for their tastes; or maybe, and I like this idea the most, a large scale warfare battle royale gamemode. I'm talking single life, huge teams of up to twenty, battle for supremacy at the centre of the map. They just need something drastic to draw in headlines and transformative to lure in readers.

I don't think the sun has set on the Fortnite empire, not yet and not even nearly. Games like Fortnite have a tendency to linger well past their prime and fester into sores on the industry if left unloved, and I don't want to see the Industry's darling Battle Royale turn into a Blizzard-level stain on the medium. They've stumbled, but they haven't fallen off yet and I think Epic Games have exactly what they need to weather the knife's edge for a few years more before they do. At least ride the storm until you've got a sufficient Fortnite successor, Epic, you owe Generation Z that much! And to Apex Legends, and all the other Battle Royales that circle the Fortnite supremacy like starving vultures, I encourage the competition knowing that only through bitter contest can the finest warrior be minted. Let's forge the best Battle Royale the industry can muster