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By EMMITT MURPHY

The main title screen for the current season of the game, showing the three newly added game modes, LEGO Fortnite (top right), Rocket Racing (bottom right), and Fortnite Festival (bottom left). (Photo courtesy of Epic Games)

Since their inception in the 1950s, video games have cemented themselves as a cornerstone in modern day society. From the arcades to the home console, video games have become an incredibly popular form of entertainment and leisure for generations, and with each generation, there seems to be a single game that defines it. 

Whether it be a game like “Street Fighter II”, the title that revolutionized the fighting game genre, inspiring industry giants like “Mortal Kombat” and “Tekken” or “Super Mario 64”, which was the pioneer of the 3D era, setting the industry standard seen today, or even the “Halo” series, which streamlined the first-person shooter genre, standardizing practices used in the genre. 

While these games have left their mark in the history of the medium, video games have progressed far past what they now have to offer, which raises the question, what is today’s generation-defining game? Many games have been brought into this argument, “Minecraft”, “Call of Duty” or even “The Last of Us”, but one game has really come on top in recent years due to its consistent quality and absurdist nature, that game, of course, being the third-person shooter, “Fortnite: Battle Royale.”

Before Fortnite’s merits can fully be discussed, a basic understanding of the absurdist art movement should be had. Absurdism is a nihilistic art movement that emerged in the 1930s, imagining the absurdity of human life without any purpose. 

Many noteworthy projects under many different mediums have been influenced by this movement, from paintings like Salvadors DalÍ’s The Persistence of Memory to films like David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Absurdist works are typically reactions to experiences in human life, which, again, can be seen in the examples above, with “The Persistence of Memory” being about DalÍ’s obsession with the concept of time, and how time moves but memories persist and eventually warp. Lynch’s Eraserhead being about his entrance into fatherhood, his fears and concerns represented in grotesque and, of course, absurd imagery.

Salvador’s DalÍ’s The Persistence of Memory, one of the most recognizable art pieces in both the surrealist and absurdist movements. (Courtesy of Salvador DalÍ)

Now how does this artistic movement connect to “Fortnite” of all things? Well, to answer this, the video game industry’s status quo should be taken into account. As hardware has improved overtime, graphical quality has as well, pushing more and more studios to make their games look as close to real life as possible. 

Games like “Call of Duty”, “Halo”, “Spider-Man”, “God of War”, all these games have prioritized making their games look real and tangible, foregoing any unique or standout artstyle it could’ve had. “The Last of Us” franchise is the worst offender of this, constantly pumping remasters and remakes just to tweak small graphical details and then selling those games at full price with absolutely no shame.

“Fortnite”, instead, rejects this push for realism and embraces the outlandish possibilities that video games hold and embraces its wildly goofy nature in both its artistic style and in its core gameplay mechanics. Just from taking a glance at it, “Fortnite” has a very obvious goofy or cartoonish art style. From the cosmetics to the items it doesn’t shy away from making the game as silly as it could possibly be, moving as far away from this status quo of realism as possible. The game’s core gameplay feature, building, also supplies the game with both a mechanic with an incredible high skill ceiling but also just generally entertaining gameplay to both use and watch. It’s hard to explain what makes building so entertaining, so it’d be best to watch some competitive matches of the game in order to really understand how enjoyable this mechanic is.

While “Fortnite” has very captivating and, to be honest, hilarious gameplay that could easily carry it on its own, the game has seen its most success and widespread recognition from its multitude of cosmetics. From skins to emotes “Fortnite” has created many customization items that are synonymous with the title, all of which have been sold using two business models that are now very well known in the industry, the “Battle Pass” and the “Item Shop.” 

Both these models utilize a sensitive time window in which a player may purchase an item. The Item Shop is a shop where players can buy items, whether that be skins, emotes, gliders or harvesting tools is completely the player’s choice. What’s special about this is that the shop rotates daily, offering new items every day, keeping players checking for a specific item they want and giving them a specific time window to purchase it from. 

The Battle Pass shares the same time-sensitive idea, offering a large amount of cosmetics for a low price that the player has to unlock overtime, which doesn’t just have the player logging in daily, but continuing to play in order to unlock what they want. While “Fortnite” may have not invented these business models, it certainly popularized them, pushing multiple developers to implement these systems into their games as well. Games like “Apex Legends”, “Rainbow Six Siege” and “Overwatch” have all adopted this system because of “Fortnite”, showing how the game has really made an impact on the industry as a whole.
What has really skyrocketed “Fortnite” into the cultural phenomenon it is today is the insane amounts of collaborations the game has managed to do. “Fortnite” had its first collaboration in May of 2018 during Chapter 1 Season 4, where the Marvel supervillain, Thanos, made an appearance on the island as a playable character for any player that found the Infinity Gauntlet.

Since then, “Fortnite”has collaborated with a multitude of independent properties, including but not limited to, Marvel, DC, Family Guy, Star Wars, “God of War”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, “Resident Evil”, “DOOM”, “Street Fighter”, “Transformers”, and so, so many more. “Fortnite” isn’t just limited to independent properties however, as the game has expanded to people in the real world, from musicians like Ariana Grande and The Weeknd, or Athletes like Patrick Mahomes and LeBron James, or even Youtubers like Mr. Beast and Ninja.

A look at the Peter Griffin skin that comes with Fortnite’s latest battle pass. (EMMITT MURPHY/ Ethic News Photo)

“Fortnite” makes no sense. From the collaborations, to the cosmetics, to the gameplay, the game is a completely unique experience to any other game on the market right now. It has managed to stay relevant for nearly seven years, and shows no sign of slowing down. The game’s latest season was recently released, bringing a brand new map, new weapons and new skins, including Peter Griffin from “Family Guy” and Solid Snake from “Metal Gear Solid.” All in all, the game thrives purely from the fact that it is different. Like the absurdist art over the decades, it defies the status quo and brings a refreshing experience to a multitude of players, cementing it as a once in a generation game that will inspire thousands to come.