Fortnite is an online video game created and released in 2017 by Epic Games. It has seven different game modes that share the same gameplay and game engine. These modes include Fortnite Battle Royale, where up to 100 players compete to be the last one standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative game that combines tower defense, shooting, and survival elements, where players work together to fight zombie-like creatures and protect objects using traps and fortifications; Fortnite Creative, which allows players to build and design their own worlds and battle arenas; Lego Fortnite, an open-world collection that includes two games: Lego Fortnite Odyssey, a survival game, and Lego Fortnite Brick Life, a social game; Rocket Racing, a racing game; Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game; and Fortnite Ballistic, a tactical first-person shooter that is still being developed. All modes except Save the World are free to play.

Save the World and Battle Royale were released in 2017 as early access games, while Creative was released on December 6, 2018. Save the World and Creative have been successful for Epic Games, but Battle Royale became especially popular, attracting more than 125 million players in less than a year and earning hundreds of millions of dollars each month. As a whole, Fortnite generated $9 billion in revenue by December 2019. Since its release, Fortnite has been named one of the greatest video games of all time.

Save the World is available on macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. Battle Royale and Creative are also available on these platforms, as well as Android and iOS devices and Nintendo Switch. The game was also released with the ninth-generation consoles: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, and Fortnite Ballistic are available on all platforms. Most game modes allow players to play together across different devices.

Game modes

Fortnite includes several game modes that share the same engine and use similar graphics and art. Five of these modes are developed and managed by Epic Games and its subsidiaries:

• Fortnite: Save the World is a cooperative game where players work together against an enemy, called a "storm." Up to four players help protect a base by gathering resources, rescuing survivors, and defending equipment. Players earn items like characters, weapons, and survivors through missions. These items can be improved by earning experience points.

• Fortnite Battle Royale is a competitive game for up to 100 players. Players start with no weapons and drop onto a map from a flying bus. They search for weapons and supplies while trying to eliminate others. A shrinking safe area forces players into smaller spaces, increasing the chance of encounters. Other modes include Zero Build (no building allowed), Reload (40 players with respawns), OG (classic map and weapons), and Blitz Royale (32 players in a fast-paced match). Party Royale is a social area with concerts.

• Lego Fortnite includes games based on Lego characters. Odyssey is a survival game where players collect materials, build structures, and fight monsters. Brick Life is a social game similar to a driving game for older players. Lego Expeditions is a team-based adventure where players use tools and weapons to complete challenges.

• Rocket Racing is a racing game developed by Psyonix. It is a spin-off of Rocket League, where players race vehicles, use speed boosts, and navigate vertical and upside-down tracks.

• Fortnite Festival is a rhythm game with three modes. In Main Stage, players hit notes to music, similar to Rock Band. Battle Stage lets 16 players compete for the highest score, while Jam Stage allows players to create remixes. Battle Stage was removed on April 16, 2026.

• Fortnite Ballistic is a tactical shooter where teams of five compete to plant and protect a device. Players buy weapons and gear between rounds. It was removed on April 16, 2026.

Fortnite Creative is a sandbox mode where players build custom games, such as battle arenas or races, using items from Battle Royale. It also supports Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), which lets players edit worlds with Fortnite assets. Creative and UEFN allow players to create games based on Fall Guys and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

All Fortnite modes support cross-platform play, requiring an Epic Games account for saving progress across devices.

All modes are free to play, except Save the World, which was pay-to-play until April 2026. Players earn V-Bucks, an in-game currency, by completing tasks or purchasing them with real money. V-Bucks can buy cosmetic items like character designs or the battle pass, which offers rewards for completing challenges. Additional passes, such as the Music Pass and Lego Pass, were added in 2023.

In 2020, Epic reduced the cost of V-Bucks by 20% to $7.99 for 1000 V-Bucks, while keeping prices at $10 for app stores due to disputes with Google and Apple over revenue cuts. These disputes led to lawsuits, with Apple allowing third-party purchases and Google reducing revenue cuts.

In 2023, V-Bucks prices increased by 12.5%, and again by 20% in 2026, raising the cost to $10 for 800 V-Bucks. Battle pass costs were also adjusted to match. Epic stated these changes were needed to cover rising costs and continue game development. Some players expressed dissatisfaction with the price increases.

Development history

Fortnite began as an idea from a special event inside Epic Games after the release of Gears of War 3 around 2011. At first, it was not one of the games being made during this event, but the idea of combining building games, like Minecraft and Terraria, with shooter games led to the creation of Fortnite. Development of Fortnite slowed because of several problems, including switching from the Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4, adding more role-playing features to keep the game alive longer, and changing the art style from dark to more cartoon-like. Epic wanted to move toward a model where games are continuously updated and supported online, so they partnered with the Chinese publisher Tencent. Tencent invested a large amount of money in Epic, which caused some leaders, including Cliff Bleszinski, who had helped develop Fortnite, to leave the company. Fortnite became a test for Epic’s new model, which slowed its development further.

Epic planned to release Fortnite as a paid early access game in July 2017, with the goal of making it free-to-play in 2019 after collecting player feedback. When Fortnite Battle Royale was released, the player-versus-environment mode was named "Save the World." Eventually, Epic decided to release "Save the World" as a paid game, taking it out of early access on June 29, 2020. Later, Epic announced that "Save the World" would become free-to-play for most console and computer versions in April 2026.

Around the same time Fortnite entered early access, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds became very popular, selling over 5 million copies within three months of its March 2017 release. Epic realized they could add a battle royale mode to Fortnite and developed it quickly. By September 2017, they planned to release this mode as part of the paid early access version of "Save the World," but later made it free-to-play as Fortnite Battle Royale, supported by microtransactions. This version quickly attracted over 10 million players in its first two weeks. Epic then created separate teams to develop Fortnite Battle Royale independently from "Save the World," allowing it to expand to other platforms like iOS, Android, and the Nintendo Switch.

A creative sandbox mode was launched on December 6, 2018, along with the start of season 7 of Fortnite Battle Royale. Each player gets a private, persistent island where they can build structures and arrange objects as they wish. Players can invite friends to join and play unofficial games like races or obstacle courses. At first, only players who bought the battle pass received their own island, but a week later, all players could access the mode for free.

In March 2023, Epic released the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), a separate tool for Windows. UEFN allows creators to use features from Unreal Engine 5 and Fortnite assets to develop new modes within the Fortnite Creative mode, which was renamed "Creative 2.0."

In October 2023, Epic redesigned the main Fortnite client to display its own modes and creative modes as part of Fortnite Experiences, similar to Roblox. In December 2023, Epic introduced three new modes: Lego Fortnite, a survival game made with The Lego Group; Rocket Racing, an arcade-style driving game by Psyonix; and Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game by Harmonix. Each mode was released as free-to-play, connected to the game’s battle pass system, and offered new rewards. A recent Fortnite Experience includes music by Daft Punk.

In March 2024, Epic announced improvements to UEFN, including the addition of Unreal Engine’s MetaHuman character rendering technology and more assets from Lego, Rocket Racing, and Fall Guys. Epic also stated that future Fortnite Battle Royale seasons starting in late 2025 will be developed using UEFN.

Reception

The Save the World mode had more than one million players by August 2017, just before the release of Battle Royale. Fortnite Battle Royale became a big financial success for Epic Games, so they split the teams working on Save the World and Battle Royale to give better support to both modes. Within two weeks of its release, over 10 million players had tried the mode. By June 2018, after the Nintendo Switch version came out, the mode had reached 125 million players. In the first half of 2018, Fortnite Battle Royale made hundreds of millions of dollars each month. Total revenue for the entire year of 2018 was estimated at $2.4 billion by SuperData Research. By the end of 2019, Fortnite had made more than $9 billion in total.

Fortnite Battle Royale became a major cultural event. Many celebrities play the game, and athletes use Fortnite emotes to celebrate victories. In March 2018, a streaming event with popular player Ninja and celebrities like Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and JuJu Smith-Schuster broke Twitch viewership records. This event led Epic Games to organize a Fortnite Battle Royale pro–am at E3 2018, where 50 pairs of streamers and professional players were matched with celebrities. Epic Games also created organized esports competitions for Fortnite Battle Royale, such as the first $30 million Fortnite World Cup in July 2019 and the Fortnite Championship Series (FNCS). The FNCS was organized by Epic Games in 2020 and 2021, and later by Blast ApS starting in 2022.

Some people are worried about how Fortnite Battle Royale affects young children, especially after the mobile version was released. Parents and teachers have said that students are spending too much time playing the game instead of focusing on schoolwork. Others are concerned about the effects of repeated scenes showing gun violence in the game on children.

In 2017, the game was nominated for "Best Co-op Game" by PC Gamer and for "Best Spectator Game" by IGN. In 2018, it won the award for "Best Ongoing Game" from both PC Gamer and IGN. IGN also nominated it for "Best Nintendo Switch Game," "Best Mobile Game," and "Best Action Game."