Epic worked 4 years on game-jam-inspired Fortnite (interview)

Epic Games greenlit Fortnite after the idea for the zombie fort-defense shooter game (yes, it’s hard to classify) emerged in a game jam. Four years later, Fortnite is still a work in progress. Epic showed it off at a preview event, where I realized how much there is to do in the game.

You have to build up your own fortress, collect resources, and craft cool gadgets to defend yourself from zombie attacks. And in multiplayer, you have to work with your allies to shoot the zombie hordes and throw obstacles in their way. It’s a lot of things to do, and that presents a marketing challenge for Mike Fischer, the vice president of publishing at Epic in Raleigh, N.C. The graphics are intense, but the art style and the characters are pretty comical.