Fortnite is a hell of a game. I think…Maybe… I honestly can’t tell! When I got the code I was so excited to crack on with building a base and fending off the undead and since that moment I’ve been so SO disappointed. Epic Games are easily one of my favorite developers and it seems odd to play a game by them that is so janky and all over the place!

Starting from the top I STILL have no idea what the premise is behind the game. As far as I can tell there are zombies jumping out of peoples skin. There are scary purple clouds that bring the zombies and an infuriating annoying robot is intent on telling me what to do each mission in the vaguest of terms. Each mission (if you can call it that) is spent gathering resources by going full Minecraft on the environment taking a gigantic pickaxe to the trees, rocks and buildings of the world until your pockets are full of rocks, metal and wood (promise that’s not dirty) and you can finally start looking for the objective. That’s right! You have to find the objective since your robot companion seems to only be able to tell you roughly where the damn thing is! So most of my time was spend jogging around smashing up stuff wondering exactly when I was going to get some damn context in my life all while trying to work out why I need so much material in the first place.

As it turns out you need all the resources you can get when you finally locate the objective and have to inevitably build a defense around it. Using your gathered materials you need to put up walls traps and healing pads to prepare for an onslaught of undead zombos coming to wreck your stuff. Now that sounds fun and for all of 5 seconds it is. Until you realize the creation tools are utter garbage. I struggled for almost my entire play time trying to work out how to just set a trap properly or how to build some low defensive walls or ramparts for my affectionately nicknamed “murder castle”. While there is a tutorial at the beginning like most games it seems more intent on teaching you basic combat and how to lay traps than build some cool structures! In fact the game straight up teases you with a giant awesome metal fort at the beginning of the tutorial before its all taken away and your left to build something with wood and a few nails all while the useless robot mocks your efforts!

So after you defend successfully you get rewarded based on your performance receiving the gaming standard loot crates. Items you can receive are weapons, various traps and new survivors for your home base. While you’re away from your console having a life your survivors will wander around your camp and gather resources and give your experience points a tidy boost. So that brings me to the massive GLARING issue with Fortnite. Like so many mobile games today Fortnite is full of pay to win options. Want to have a huge boost to your survivor count? Buy them. Want to have a load of new weapons? Buy them. I was particularly shocked when I found an option in the store to buy an ultimate edition for £89!!! What did it get you? A few weapons, resources and a ninja hero to play as. If I felt the need to own that I’d officially declare myself a lost cause and end it all…

During all the hours I put into Fortnite I’ll be honest the only ones I actually enjoyed were the times I played with Luke and we could just mess around. The game honestly has very little charm of its own and actually feels like a broken miss mash of other more successful games. The resource gathering of Minecraft. The enemies of Plants vs Zombies (they look almost exactly the same) and the point defense and pay to win aspect of Clash of Clans. None really works together and you’ll spend all of your time trying to navigate unintelligible menus trying to be better at a game that clearly just wants to drain your wallet rather than let you win for free!

Fortnite gets a disappointing 5/10 from me.