Epic Now Making Minecraft-Inspired Fortnite Franchise

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By Kevin Parrish
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Epic revealed a new IP during Spike TV's 2011 Video Game Awards Saturday night that seemingly borrows from both Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft.

On Saturday Epic Games revealed a new IP (franchise) called Fortnite -- or FORTnITE -- which is a departure from the studio's typical action hero-themed shooter loaded with weapons, explosions, aliens and cheese ball one-liners. As Epic described in an email statement Monday morning, Fortnite is "an expansive original world that invites players to be creative, resourceful and collaborative by day and defend their prized fortress by night."

Sound familiar? It should, because lead designer Lee Perry revealed that the inspiration behind Fortnite came from Minecraft, Mojang's indie hit sandbox-based PC game. "Minecraft was an inspiration for sure," Perry said on Twitter, but later stresses that it's not a clone with a different skin. "I see lots of questions asking if Fortnite is free-form construction. It is. It's not scripted or just boarding up existing structures. Minecraft lets you build anything, we are focusing on constructing buildings specifically."

Previously Epic's Cliff Bleszinski told Joystiq during the Spike TV's 2011 Video Game Awards event that Fortnite wouldn't include "dudebros" as seen in Gears of War and even Bulletstorm. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, right? But creatively for the team, Gears has been amazing for us. But it's fun to kind of stretch our wings and do something that's a little different from the usual."

"Traditionally, we make shooters and shooting is in there, but it's really not what the game is all about," he added. "It's really a game that is more about survival than anything else."

On a visual level, Fortnite takes its art style cues from Valve’s own cartoonish shooter, Team Fortress 2. It will also reportedly feature weapon crafting, traps, a leveling system, underground exploration, boss fights, rare loot and even a team survival mode. Bliszinski said the concept was actually pitched just months ago, and that the components have come together at lightning speed.

"[Epic is still] figuring out what to do with the lightning we have in a bottle," he said in this video interview.

Fortnite Trailer - YouTube
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Kevin Parrish
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Goldengoose
    Definitely sounds interesting. I think i'll wait untill they actually start making it and release some details before i get excited about anything.
    Reply
  • N.Broekhuijsen
    Looks fun!! I'll definetely be trying it out!
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Looks interesting. Will be nice to have something a little different from them, compared to what they usually churn out. Just hope they dont borrow too heavily from MC/TF2.
    Reply
  • Steveymoo
    I think the moral of the story here is:

    If you're a big company, it's fine if you want to steal successful ideas from smaller companies, and use them for your own profitable gain. But if you're a smaller company... God help you if your game or idea is even remotely anything like that of the bigger company.
    Reply
  • molo9000
    SteveymooI think the moral of the story here is:If you're a big company, it's fine if you want to steal successful ideas from smaller companies, and use them for your own profitable gain. But if you're a smaller company... God help you if your game or idea is even remotely anything like that of the bigger company.
    Minecraft itself was heavily inspired by Infiniminer.

    "Stealing" successful ideas is the bread and butter of the video game industry.
    "Doom clones" got the FPS genre started. Dune 2 clones got the RTS genre started, etc.
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    grand theft auto clones got sandbox-type games started ;D
    Reply
  • belardo
    And Space War started it all.
    Reply
  • mouse24
    SteveymooI think the moral of the story here is:If you're a big company, it's fine if you want to steal successful ideas from smaller companies, and use them for your own profitable gain. But if you're a smaller company... God help you if your game or idea is even remotely anything like that of the bigger company.
    I'm lookin at you scrolls/bethesda fiasco
    Reply
  • chomlee
    They all stole there ideas from Pong!
    Reply
  • HolyCrusader
    de5_roygrand theft auto clones got sandbox-type games started ;DThere were open-world, sandbox games out long before the GTA games. The furthest-back I can think of to a sand-box type of game would have been the Starflight games. Of more recent games, you have the Elder Scrolls games (Arena and Daggerfall), the first two Fallout games, and (to a lesser degree) the Baldur's Gate games (for the PC).
    Reply