I never played this game but I watched gameplays on youtube and I must say without insulting someone who like it that I don’t like it because it looks like unfinished game to me compared to other games in terms of graphics.
I grew up playing FPS shooters like Doom, Quake, Tribes, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, etc, but I had avoided Fortnite for awhile because it just seemed like a kid’s game, whatever. Then my oldest son started getting into it and we’d play matches together, and suddenly I felt out of my element. The addition of building mechanics adds in a whole other element that you don’t really have to think about in other games. Granted, it’s not realistic being able to build shit that quickly, but whatever, it’s a game. And seeing some of the skill involved with these people running/gunning/building elaborate forts and the sort of battles that play out between two people gets insane sometimes.
Another interesting aspect of it is all the cross-marketing that goes on, you’ve got almost every major franchise represented in some way, shape, or form. It reminds me of Ready Player One. It sounds dumb, but Fortnite is probably the closest thing to a Metaverse that we currently have. I mean, hell, Emperor Palpatine somehow returned in between the movies in Fortnite (a dark day for Star Wars fandom).
God, that Star Wars thing legitimately pissed me off back when it happened. I still feel kinda bad about it, but I’ve mostly gotten over Star Wars as a whole by this point thanks to Disney.
I tried fortnite once a couple years back and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to play their weird among us mode but I kept dying within like 30 seconds.
It is a game flooded with child players that lost its identity when it stopped being a tower defense and instead copied PUBG but with other licensed IPs.
The game itself is fine I guess, if you dont ever interact with its insufferably annoying community.
It’s fun to fire up every now and then and check out what’s new. I mostly play indie games, deckbuilders, etc., so I don’t care about graphics so much.
I will say they did monetization right - free to play with absolutely no pay to win elements.
in terms of graphics.
Lots of games don’t give a F about graphics. Especially competitive shooters.
Friend of mine played enemy territory competitively. They turned the graphics all the way down so grass and smoke didn’t get in the way of their field of vision.
I am not a fan of the genre. But a friend I met playing EverQuest back in 99 started to play it because his 6 year old son wanted to play, so I started playing. I enjoyed playing with them, then my own son started to play with us too.
Were this not the case, I would never have played. My friend died in ‘22 and I mostly stopped playing. His son still calls me to play. But other than that I play other games.
If you like the genre, it is a good game. You can play 100% for free unless you needs skins (there are a number you get for free)
Any free online game is gonna be ruined by its community. Do yourself a favour and look for a game you actually like and pay for it.
The graphical shortcomings might have something to do with there being 100 players in the match at once.
This chapter/season added jetpacks, which are very fun.
It was better when it was co-op against AI zombies.
For me, I couldn’t get behind the battle royale thing… It’s just too much pressure. Don’t get me wrong, I like intense gunfights, but for a win to be only when you’re the last team standing of everyone on the server using only the random loot you found … that’s a lot of pressure.
On the graphics front, things have changed a lot over the years:
I actually think it looks pretty decent personally and it keeps getting better. It’s not Hunt Showdown: 1896, but it’s still pretty nice visually (just more of an animation than photorealism focus).
The game looks better and better, but the performance just keeps getting worse On my PC I can’t get the game to run properly since they switched to UE5
but the performance just keeps getting worse
That’s just the nature of PC gaming; as time goes on games look prettier but run worse.
I think that’s just the state of triple A games
No it’s literally how software works. New hardware comes out, you do more with the hardware, old hardware can’t do the new things and runs worse.
I get what you’re saying, but I’ve been upgrading my PC over the years and still noticed that with games of big game companies, they care less and less about performance. I firmly believe that publishers, in an attempt to cut costs, tell the game studio to not prioritize performance, while trying to rely on software like super resolution algorithms, to make their games run. In some instances they reused old game Engines for a new and bigger game, for example with Cyberpunk, Stellaris and Elden Ring. Smaller developers are doing everything they can to make a game run smoothly. The best example for this is Factorio. That is my opinion and I totally understand your point of view.
I firmly believe that publishers, in an attempt to cut costs, tell the game studio to not prioritize performance
So, I agree there’s some amount of that. You also have things like Dice (the studio that makes Battlefield) where they lost their veteran development team to poor internal management.
There are also some (now fairly large) studios that are just absolutely terrible at game performance like Studio Wildcard (makers of the Ark games).
while trying to rely on software like super resolution algorithms, to make their games run.
There’s definitely some of this too. I believe the bigger issue is that games have gotten so much bigger and more expensive to develop. Making and shipping a game that runs with 4k textures, dynamic (possibly ray traced) lighting, variable rate shading (instead of manual level-of-detail systems), etc is a lot to get right.
A common thing with any software development is to take advantage of newer abstractions that make your life easier. For instance, I’m fairly confident Hunt Showdown 1896 has moved to some form of variable rate shading instead of level-of-detail (in pre-1986 when you zoomed in on some of the trees they’d literally change shape when they flipped between the models in the worst case; I’ve yet to see that post-1896). Not having to make a bunch of models and having the software “just figure out” good lower-poly models for things that are sufficiently far away is presumably a huge productivity boost. Similarly, when ray-traced lighting becomes the standard a lot of game development will get easier because setting up lighting won’t (per my understanding) require as many tricks. In both cases, it’s both less work for developers and a better result for players with the hardware to run it.
In some instances they reused old game Engines for a new and bigger game, for example with Cyberpunk, Stellaris and Elden Ring.
Old engines aren’t necessarily a bad thing (if they’re appropriately updated) and I think people focus too much on the engine vs the game play. Take Starfield, I’ve heard a lot of people complain about it on forums for copying a similar formula as some of Bethesda’s past titles.
The issue almost certainly isn’t the engine used, but the design choices associated with using that engine (and the decision to not make new things work).
Linux, Darwin (MacOS), Windows, Chrome, Firefox, etc are all long running software projects (as are Unreal Engine, Unity, Source Engine, CryEngine, etc). Occasionally, someone throws out their current product entirely and replaces it, but normally there are incremental upgrades made to provide the new functionality that’s desired.
Smaller developers are doing everything they can to make a game run smoothly. The best example for this is Factorio.
The performance profile of something like Factorio vs Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, or Hunt Showdown is extremely different.
It has a bright and cartoony aesthetic, which isn’t inherently bad. Objects are easily readable, and the style is very flexible for adding all sorts of characters from various settings. The style also ages better than attempting photo realism.
Otherwise, yeah sure it’s a shooter which happened to catch on for the younger audience especially, and the increase of social areas and events gave it more varied content.
I played it for about 10 minutes, it’s not really for me. I don’t think about it much, but I understand why someone might like it. Just because it isn’t for me doesn’t mean it’s bad. People that getting really riled up about it existing or being popular give the same aura as 12 year olds vocally making fun of things 10 year olds are into to prove how mature and sophisticated they are in comparison.
I enjoyed it like 3-5 years ago, but since then it shifted significantly towards kids and that was probably a morally respectable move given how many kids are playing but I don’t like it anymore. Graphics is top-notch, don’t confuse your subjective dislike of the style with it being unfinished or underdeveloped.
It’s fun and it’s free.
Don’t give a damn about communities and YouTubers and what other people think - that will never help you with anything, ever. Simply check out if you like the game by yourself.
Never tried it, never will. There are too many games out there fighting for my attention, and fortnite never wins that fight.
It’s fine.
opionions
