By Ronald Gordon 

Fortnite is doing a lot to improve its reception and player base beyond what is normally expected through Battle Royale. Aside from what’s known already, such as skins from Peter Griffin and Solid Snake coming to the game, Fortnite demoed three new modes here in NYC that are all separate games in and of themselves. Fortnite Festival is a surprisingly well-built homage to Guitar Hero. Rocket Racing channels the sheer force and speed of super-powered cars. And Lego Fortnite stands out as a well-built survival game where the world of Fortnite can be explored without the worry of dying. I got to explore all three of these game modes before their release, and had a lot more fun than I’ve ever had Fortnite before. 

The first mode I got to explore was Fortnite Festival, which was first a cooperative Guitar Hero session on the Main Stage and then an interactive hodge podge of different song choices on Jam Stage. Fortnite Festival allows you to choose to either be the Drums, the Bass, the Vocals, or the Lead (mostly guitar but I sometimes switched to a keytar as well). Each instrument is customizable in the Locker where you’d customize skins and such. Gathering together a band of four friends/players at max, I got to play some of The Weeknd’s most popular songs, such as “Blinding Lights” and “Save Your Tears.” While I’ve never been great at rhythm games, I felt a team spirit being a part of a band and seeing how our scores melded together to be judged in the end. If you’re like me and lack the wherewithal to truly rock out and get a high score in any segment, you’d enjoy Jam Stage a lot more. 

In the Jam Stage, you and other players can utilize the same instruments in different ways, mashing together the four parts of different songs to create some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster of Music. Each instrument could be the same song or different, and you could manipulate the tempo and pitch of any part individually to affect the whole of the song, creating something entirely new. I remember my group somehow mashed the drums of “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe, the bass of “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, the vocals of “Gangnam Style” by PSY, and the keytar of “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd. It was, to put it simply, something to hear from a distance rather than closely. But that’s just one example of how mashups can be made through the Jam Stage. As of right now there’s a diverse listing of songs from Nine Inch Nails to Drake, and more to come as Festival hopes to expand its roster and keep the music playing.

Next, I got to check out Rocket Racing, which is a partnership between Rocket League and Fortnite to create an invigorating, speedy experience with compelling mechanics. Picking your car is easy, as there’s not a lot of parts to manipulate. Your main focus should be the paint job, but once you have it and a max of eight other players to race, you can get started and blast off down a track. Rocket Racing isn’t your average racing game, as its main focus is the boost function which charges as you go along. Although if you don’t have enough charge as of yet another reliable way to get a quick burst of speed is through drifting, which charges up its own meter of boost to use right as you straighten out your car. Mix in the fact that there are segments where you can flip your car and drive on the ceilings, and even fly through the air for a short period, Rocket Racing becomes a high velocity joyride of, er, Epic proportions. Even when I ended up in fourth place, or sometimes dead last because of the obstacles of the course, I was thrilled to be able to play and learn the mechanics of such a different racing experience. 

Last but certainly not the least of my experiences was Lego Fortnite, which could most definitely be its own standalone game due to the sheer mass of what is capable within it. Lego Fortnite is a survival sandbox game, not unlike the forever renowned Minecraft, but with all the spirit that Lego can bring out into the world of Fortnite. Exploring the island is a task that not many players get to experience in the base game, thanks to the Storm shrinking a lot of the map as time passes.

But Lego Fortnite allows you the luxury of finally getting to see the true beauty that Fortnite’s map holds, and even add to it yourself. You can build a town, start a community, create glorious buildings and masterpieces with Lego bricks, and even dive into cool caves and tunnels to find treasures or fight boss monsters. All the while, you battle hunger, cold & heat, and whatever else may plague you. Lego Fortnite was one of the more enjoyable survival sandbox games I’ve played, and that’s saying a lot considering I can barely play them by myself without getting lost or bored after a few minutes. It felt like I had something to build towards rather than just experience an endgame. I could open up my camp to allow NPCs to join, explore to find more things to craft, and really build whatever I put my mind to if I had the resources. The 45 minutes I had to demo the game didn’t even feel like enough. I could’ve stayed at that computer for hours making a town to call my own. 

Thanks to all three of these new games, Fortnite is becoming much more than your average online shooter. As I toured around and got to know some of the people who worked on these new modes, I had one real question in my mind at the end of the day. “How do you feel Fortnite is trying to embrace the idea of New Community with these new games?” The answers I got were exactly as I expected; Lego Fortnite is all about togetherness and experiencing what it’s like to build a home with others. Fortnite Festival is in and of itself about community as Music is a community-based activity. And Rocket Racing allows for competition and the honing of reactionary skills in a wholesome manner. Each new game mode brings something to the table that allows others to enjoy Fortnite without having to worry about the learning curve of Battle Royale or Zero Build. They let friends challenge friends in a racing game or families to jam together with old and new songs, or for classmates to build complex buildings all with Lego bricks. The prospect of unity is what Epic hopes to embolden within Fortnite’s fanbase, and if more efforts are put into game modes like these, then Fortnite might just have a brand new fan.