Everything You Need to Know About 'Fortnite,' the Mega-Popular Game Even Drake is Playing

If you are anywhere near gamers, you have probably heard of Fortnite. Think of it as a cross between the megahit Minecraft and the zombie-filled survival game Left 4 Dead; your character is literally dropped into the middle of an open world, where your task is to survive. The version of Earth in the game was ravaged by a storm that caused 98% of the world’s population to disappear, and also has zombies that are dead set on taking out the remaining population. Players are equipped with tools to not only build weapons, but build defenses against the storm, all while taking out the hordes of zombies.

The original game was release in in July of 2017, around the same time that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was released. Epic Games is said to have seen Battlegrounds, which is said to have made the “battle royale” style of multiplayer game popular, and flipped it into their own version, dubbed Fortnite Battle Royale, which was released for free in September of 2017. Fortnite Battle Royale was an instant hit, with 10 million players reportedly jumping on board in the first two weeks of its release.

What’s the hype over these games, you might ask? Well, it goes a bit deeper than people just loving what Battlegrounds brought to the table. Some say that the seeds for the battle royale genre of games began back in 2012, after the release of the popular film The Hunger Games. Modifications were made to Minecraft to bring elements from the film into the expansive open world game. Dubbed "Survival Games," players were tasked to compete against each other on a map; chests were placed throughout the map that held valuable items for their survival, with the last player standing becoming the winner.

Modding of popular games to include a survival aspect gained popularity, with one modder named Brendan Greene (who called himself "PlayerUnknown") creating a version of this mode in the game DayZ, based on the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale back in 2013. After spending roughly four years developing games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds got an early release in March of 2017, becoming the definitive “battle royale” game by year’s end. Word is that 20 million units of Battlegrounds were sold for PC, with an astonishing one-million copies of Battlegrounds for the Xbox One selling in three days.

With the rise of eSports and online multiplayer-gaming, the battle royale-style is a perfect fit for today’s gamers worldwide. Epic Games wisely tapped into that growing market with their own version and took over the entire game, no pun intended.

We know Drake, Ninja, and Travis Scott are fans of Fortnite, but they only join a growing fanbase who have been going ham on this game for months. In January, Epic Games announced that 45 million people have played the Battle Royale version game, so far. In early February, 3.4 million people were playing the game concurrently, causing major problems to Epic’s servers. To put that in perspective, Battlegrounds, aka the dominant battle royale game before Fortnite, hit three million concurrent players in January. That number was four times the 750,000 player count that Dota 2 achieved back in December of 2017. This means that Fortnite Battle Royale eclipsed the number one and number two games on gaming platform Steam. It’s also sitting at the top of the most-played games list on Microsoft Xbox One and is the most popular game on Twitch.

CNBC recently reported that Google searches for the term “Fortnite” have eclipsed searches for Minecraft and Bitcoin over the last few weeks, so if you haven’t gotten on the Fortnite train yet, you will be soon.

Epic Games has already dominated Twitch and your Google searches with Fortnite; what does the future hold for them? After potentially adding an emote that will mimic Drake’s dancing from the "Hotline Bling" video to the game, it’s being reported that they will be taking their talents to the massive E3 convention in Los Angeles this June with what’s being called a Party Royale. While all details aren’t set in stone as of yet, Epic laid out their plans for this event, which will pit top Fortnite Battle Royale players alongside celebrities and athletes in what they are calling a “Celebrity Pro-Am.”

Hopefully, Drake will be in the building and ready to play.