Fortnite: Battle Royale is a huge online hit and is reverberating throughout the gaming world at a rate which surprised everyone who paid attention to the on-going development of the non-battle royale, paid survival game from which it sprung. Today, it and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are the two top players in the battle royale genre, however the two games have deviated greatly in the paths laid out towards the future.
Design Lead Eric Williamson of Epic Games spoke with IGN’s James Duggan about the past and future of both Fortnite and the whole battle royale genre. While the runaway success and development process of Fortnite were the main discussion topics, a few throwaway comments revealed information directly related to what kind of content players can expect in the near future.
When asked about the possibility of a new map being added to the game, Williamson stated that it is of low priority. While PUBG has been adding new maps to its lineup slowly but steadily, with Codename: Savage being the next in line, Fortnite has stuck to the same map since day one, however that one map has been significantly updated and changed over the course of the game’s lifetime. Currently, a series of in-game events and mysteries, such as a number of falling comets, suggest another major map update is incoming.
Williamson also spoke about the various fan theories and speculation about how loot drop percentages are altered or how certain locations are better for certain items - they’re all hogwash, and loot in the game is completely random. Treasure Chest placement and spawn rates were also discussed, with a maximum of over 400 possible chest locations being present on the map, with the average spawn rate being about 75% of those positions being filled.
