Epic’s long-awaited Fortnite is now out – kind of

The story with Fortnite is a bit of a weird one. The game is entering early access right now with a plan to go into “free to play” status in early to mid 2018. just as it sounds, you’d be paying now to access a game that will be free later.

There are a bunch of different editions, ranging from $39 for the most basic digital pack, all the way up to $149. The $60 Rare Starter Hero pack gives you eight rare heroes, four rare weapons, a rare trap, and an “exclusive founders pistol.” Other packs have increasingly rare rewards accompanying them. If you pick the game up as a physical disc on console, it’ll run you the standard $60.

Once the game goes live, though, it’ll be free to play, and new players start from scratch. That means that, if you’re patient, you don’t have to spend a dime. Jump in now, though, and you could help shape the end product.

Epic is making an interesting gamble here. Even just reading chatter on places like GameStop and Amazon, there’s some backlash about the game’s impending free-to-play status and its always-online nature. Asking people to pay for a game that’ll eventually be free is going to raise some gamers’ ire, no matter how obvious the publisher makes the eventual change.

Phelps says the game’s core loop is ready to go, and the RPG elements around it are fully “baked,” and the team is ready to never reset the game again. As a free-to-play game, you’ll be completing those missions, as well as things like daily missions and events, collecting in-game currency. There’s only one currency for the game, which you can buy with real money or win through play. Phelps says that “pay to accelerate, not pay to win” was core to the team during development.

Through the in-game currency and the “pinata packs” you can earn through play (and buy with currency), you’ll unlock weapons, items, and the game’s 116 different heroes. The heroes are each different from each other in some minor way, split into classes like Soldier and given a set of three traits out of an available five for their class. Customization elements are coming in the future, but Phelps said that is something not heavily implemented right now.

But there’s one more question.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/07/27/fortnite-now-available-early-access/