Almost exactly a year ago, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was on top of the world and Epic Games was testing the waters with a battle royale game of its own, for which it used its zombie survival game Fortnite as a template. At the time, it looked something like a PUBG clone, though it was one of the first of such clones to hit the market. It took place on a largely barren map with some small buildings and the occasional larger subdivision or farm, and we wondered how it would distinguish itself from PUBG. A year later, we’re staring this thing in the face:
Season 6 has arrived in Fortnite: Battle Royale, and it’s brought with it a ridiculous map change that puts even Viking Village and Tomato Temple to shame. The house at the center of Loot Lake has been raised up in the air by otherworldly forces and is now floating up there in the sky on top of a churning purple vortex. It’s something that you really have to see to get a handle on, and from a technical level it’s by far the most ambitious “new” area Epic has introduced yet. So how will Fortnite distinguish itself from PUBG? With otherworldy churning purple vortexes, that’s how.
It’s worth going to see for yourself in the game. It’s helped by the fact that there are some active elements in a way that we haven’t seen with previous map updates: the vortex down at the bottom might look like it’s going to suck you in, but actually it will push you up, allowing access to the island after the start of the match without forcing players to waste hundreds of resources getting up there. And if you let it send you straight up to the bottom of the island, you’ll notice an old friend hanging out:
It’s Kevin the Cube, which proved himself a constant fascination as he rolled around the map last season, painting glyphs, creating low-gravity zones and ultimately melting into Loot Lake, where apparently he was working on this neat little trick all along. Again, I think this game has well-distinguished itself from PUBG. Like many of Fortnite’s more impressive map changes, this isn’t really a big thing from a gameplay perspective: I expect this to be more or less a ghost town a few weeks from now, just like with Viking Village. It’s an accomplishment all the same, because there’s more to Fortnite than the gameplay.
There are plenty of other map changes, from a spooky castle by haunted hills to a big bunker complex over in wailing woods. But nothing quite captures the ambition of this game like the floating island in Loot Lake, and I’m here for it.
