That’s why the PC is such a great platform to allow us to create and expand on the game as we get player feedback.Learning a new game engine as a complete beginner is very intimidating. We’re hoping to get out as quickly as we can and start getting feedback from people as soon as possible. Depending on what really resonates with people, we’re going to make more of that. We want people to play together and work together. We’re going to make more of things that you’re going to want to do in our game and that’s a big part of why we’re trying to appeal to all of these different types of personalities. We’re going to be very much looking at feedback that we get from the community and the people who are playing it and react to that feedback. Jessen: Fortnite is going to be a living project, so this is really a game that we’re making for the gamers. What role will gamers ultimately have in how this game progresses moving forward? Those are things that all of the artists could make themselves once the original Blueprint was set up. We linked that to other items in the other blueprints that were already in the game, like the streetlamps that would turn on automatically when the sun fell, or the clock that actually tells the actual time of the game in the environment. Different locations of the sun or the moon in the sky would create different lighting scenarios. Depending on the time of day, there would be different colors that would be displayed in the environments. Every element, everything that you see has its own personality, from the enemies to even the chairs and the dressers and stuff in the world, so that when you’re there you’re interested in finding out what happened.įor example, one of the things that we did was we set up so that it ran on a day and night cycle. Jessen: The Fortnite world is a totally unique art style for us, where we’re honing into this Pixar meets Tim Burton meets Looney Tune kind of vibe.
What was the inspiration for the visual look of Fortnite? There will be lots of new and unique places for you to visit and discover, for people who really love that. Our worlds are dynamic, and the idea is that scavenging is something that you’ll want to do on a long-term basis. People who are a more of a support-type personality can aid their friends and will do things that will support them either in combat or scavenging, grabbing resources and making sure there’s enough for building. For people who really like action, there are guns and tools and melee combat. Jessen: Fortnite’s a really interesting game in that it’s being made for all sorts of different types of personalities. That led up to this idea of Fortnite, which is a game where you and your friends go out and scavenge for stuff and discover the ability to build all sorts of unique and awesome-looking forts, and defend them against the enemies that are trying to attack you.Ĭan you talk about the different types of gameplay that’s built into this experience? All of this fun stuff combined with this childhood memory of what it was like to build forts in your backyard, or in your living room, and all the things you had to scavenge for to find them. Tanya Jessen: The idea for Fortnite actually came at the time when we were thinking a lot about different types of play styles, dynamic environments and crafting and building.
Game On: Where did the idea for Fortnite come from? Tanya Jessen, producer for Fortnite, talks about what’s in store for PC gamers with Fortnite in this exclusive interview. Gameplay will encourage a group of players (Epic is still tweaking how many) to band together to build forts during the day to withstand attacks from a wide assortment of monsters at night. The game is worth following because it evinces a very different visual look and feel for Epic Games, and also introduces new gameplay we’ve never seen before from this shooter-focused development studio. The independent game studio has also tasked a team of approximately 15 to work with UE4 and create a new online PC game, Fortnite. Epic Games has been showing off its new Unreal Engine 4 game engine technology this year to both developers and the media during GDC and E3 2012.