Tag: Epic Games

Fortnite returns to its origins: you can now play the game like in 2017

Fortnite is already seven years old. Almost eight. It’s a game with an age, and you can see that age in many aspects. For example, the number of people who feel nostalgic about how the game was in its early days. Not in its true beginnings, because no one remembers how Fortnite was at the very start, but when it introduced the battle royale mode. When it became what it is today: the game that changed everything with Season 1 of Chapter 1. Something that Epic Games knows well. Fortnite is returning to Chapter 1 very soon The […]

Fortnite is already seven years old. Almost eight. It is a game with an age, and that age is noticeable in many aspects. For example, the number of people who feel nostalgic for how the game was in its early days. Not in its true origins, because no one remembers how Fortnite was at the very beginning, but when it introduced the battle royale mode. When it became what it is today: the game that changed everything with Season 1 of Chapter 1. Something that Epic Games knows well.

Fortnite returns to Chapter 1 very soon

They know it so well, in part, because last November they launched a new season called Fortnite OG. The premise was that, during the season, they would relive different moments from Chapter 1 of Fortnite, recalling what the game was like back then. And it was a huge success. Tens of millions of players returned to the game after years of not playing. Something that Epic Games took note of. And now it is going to become a permanent mode for nostalgia lovers who still remember eating toast with Nocilla.

As commented from the official Fortnite account, Fortnite OG returns permanently. Starting December 6, we will be able to enjoy the original map with the original loot and even the original season, just as we remember it.

Additionally, the leaker HYPEX, has been able to confirm some more juicy details about this. Although it will start on December 6, we won’t have everything from the beginning. A new season will be introduced monthly in this first chapter. Chapter 1 consisted of 10 Seasons, so over the next ten months, all the seasons will be progressively introduced to form the entire original experience. Will they continue with Chapter 2 afterward or stop here? This is something we will still have to wait to find out.

This move makes sense when we consider that the launch of Fortnite OG managed to gather 44.7 million players. The highest number of simultaneous players for the game so far. Something they aim to replicate with the introduction of this new mode, similar to what others like Blizzard are doing with Overwatch: Classic, thus demonstrating that there is no weapon more powerful than nostalgia.

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Fortnite, the third-person shooter with building and survival elements, is one of those games that needs no introduction. Known especially for its Battle Royale aspect, Epic Games' free-to-play cross-platform game has been providing frenzy and fun in a PvP (Player Vs Player) that has redefined the online multiplayer genre for years. And it doesn't matter how many years pass, the eternal rival of PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) or the more recent Valorant remains as fresh as the first day.

Epic Games announces its free games—and horror fans will be delighted

Summers are for grabbing your swimsuit, towel, water guns… and sending a WhatsApp to your friends saying that you’re not joining the plan because you prefer to play at home with the air conditioning. And Epic Games has made it easy for you. Because terror is for summer. If you’re going to sweat, at least let it be for a reason, right? Between July 18th and 25th, these are the two games that you can finish without paying a single euro. Be careful.

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Maid of Sker

To give you an idea, this game has been compared to Silent Hill, Outlast, The Evil Within and Resident Evil. In exchange for zero units of money, I don’t know what else you can ask for. It was released three and a half years ago and if in 2020 you didn’t have the time for video games (for whatever reason) now you have the opportunity to pick it up again. In the game, you will explore the Sker Hotel in 1898 while trying to avoid blind enemies that chase you by sound. Hint: no, you can’t just start shooting around. Haven’t you seen A Quiet Place?

Arcade Paradise

Can you imagine having an arcade in 1990? Well, this simulator makes it easy for you: although at first it is a laundry simulator, it quickly becomes exactly your dream. Buy arcade machines, make the clientele grow, get rich at their expense. And in the end, leave the washing machines aside and also change them for arcade machines, of course. But the game has much more, because you will have to take out the trash, remove gum stuck to the machines, clean the bathroom and, of course, try to have a life apart from work. You’re not going to spend your life among pixels, right? …Right?

It has never been so cheap to have fun with cool, summery, and, why not, a little shady games! Give them a try, at least, right? What do you have to lose?

Epic Games is going after Apple: they will launch a game store and Fortnite on iOS

Apple continues to monitor third-party app stores, which means that Epic may encounter issues with the launch.

Epic plans to launch the Epic Games Store on the iPhone this year in the European Union… and along with the store, their idea is to bring Fortnite back to the bitten apple platform. This is the price to pay for a trial that is already historic.

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The announcement by Epic Games comes after Apple shared how it will open iOS in response to the EU’s strong measures against big tech companies.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney achieves his goal of returning to iOS without having to go through Tim Cook’s hoop. The legal battles between the two giants have ended with a bittersweet taste for both.

The victory that Epic Games has been waiting for since 2020

Epic still doesn’t have a clear plan on how or when it will make its landing on iOS. They say that the store will launch “by the end of this year” and that Fortnite will be available through it.

Both will only be available in European countries covered by the Digital Markets Act. “Stay tuned for details as we uncover the regulatory timeline,” he said in a Twitter post, adding that “we will continue to argue before the courts and regulators that Apple is infringing the law.”

Fortnite has been off iOS for a whopping three years, after Apple kicked out the game and banned Epic for sneaking in third-party in-app payments. Epic subsequently sued Apple for it in a case that just concluded last week: Epic largely lost.

Apple continues to monitor third-party app stores, which means that Epic may have trouble with the launch.

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Epic has been saying for years that they would like to bring their game store, currently available for Windows and macOS, to iOS as well. The store takes a smaller portion of fees than Apple’s App Store, which could make it an attractive option for developers if Epic manages to sell the project.

The Epic Games store is giving away games every day

Epic Games has started its annual stage of giving away video games left and right. This is a practice that they have been doing for a few years now and it gives users the opportunity to have a substantial increase in available video games in the Epic Games launcher library.

Just as the Epic Games game launcher does at this time of year, the daily free games have returned, allowing players to permanently acquire titles that change every 24 hours. This way, in a matter of days, any user can significantly expand their library of games available through the Epic Games Launcher.

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A free game every 24 hours

It is important to pay close attention to the games that Epic Games showcases, as they change every 24 hours, and you can only get that game within that time frame. After it expires, another game will take its place and if you didn’t have time to save it to your library, you lose the opportunity to keep it for free indefinitely.

In the first batch, Epic Games gave away DNF Duel, a fighting game for those who enjoy combo hits under an anime aesthetic. Their second giveaway, now available, is Melvor Idle, a minimalist RPG where the adventure, taken to its most schematic exponent, becomes an addictive single-player role-playing experience.

DNF Duel has been the first game that Epic Games gave away this Christmas

The Epic Games struggle

Epic Games has been one of the most important companies in the video game industry for a few years now, although if there is one business at the core of its revenue, it would be Fortnite. This game, which has recently been reimagined to become its own ecosystem with different game modes within it, is undoubtedly the cash cow that Epic strives to take care of. However, its game launcher does not succeed in the same way as its flagship game.

In the case of the Epic Games launcher, unlike other projects, they are making a significant investment in losses to try to make this platform profitable. In the PC market, there are numerous game launchers, with Steam standing out, as well as those from specific studios such as EA, Ubisoft, or CD Projekt Red, and the persistent policy of free games that Epic carries out aims to be more relevant to users and make them spend more money on buying games through their application.

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We already know all the games that the Epic Store will give away this Christmas

The first free game you can get is Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (2023), which includes three expansions: The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep.

The best time of the year has arrived, that moment when getting great games is free. Literally free. The responsible for this spending spree is none other than the Epic Games Store, the video game store from the creators of Fortnite.

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Epic Games plans to give away 17 games during its annual holiday sales for the Epic Games Store, the company announced on Wednesday.

The first free game you can get is Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (2023), which includes three expansions: The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep.

If you want to catch up on some old Destiny 2 content before the recent delay of The Final Shape’s release, the Legacy Collection can be a good option to add to your Epic Games Store library (although keep in mind that it does not include the current Lightfall expansion).

Legacy Collection will be available for free until December 20th; at that time, the next free game will be unlocked.

The best deals from the Epic Games Store this Christmas

The Christmas sales of 2023 also include good deals.

Epic recovers its Epic Coupons and, on this occasion, they will offer you a 33% discount on any transaction that costs €14.99 or more during the course of the sales.

  • You can get the excellent Alan Wake II for €39.99 and, during the offer, Epic will also give you a code for Alan Wake Remastered. And with the Epic coupon, you can get all that for only €26.79.
  • Assassin’s Creed Mirage is on sale for €34.99, and you can get it for €23.44 with the coupon. My colleague Ash Parrish wasn’t a big fan of the game, but at that price, it might be worth taking a look.
  • EA Sports FC is discounted by 60% to €27.99. If you take off 33% with the epic coupon, it will cost you €18.75.
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The way Epic Games presents discounts is really strange, or so we believe in this magazine, since it gives a discounted price and then you have to add a coupon that is only activated at checkout.

This makes games that were worth 35 euros end up costing 23 euros, which is much more appealing than that initial discount. Someone at Epic should be held accountable for this strange way of doing business.

Fortnite on the Steam Deck? Tim Sweeney says no, although there is a but.

“Fortnite on the Steam Deck? Tim Sweeney says no, but there’s a catch; although that catch doesn’t make much sense, and let’s break it down.”

Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world and yet, it seems to be locked in its own ecosystem. Although it can be played on mobile devices, it is heavily restricted to appear on them. And while its home is on computers, it also seems to have many issues reaching outside of the Epic store itself. Although, no matter what the CEO of the company says, perhaps all of this is not always the fault of others.

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In an interview with The Verge, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was asked why Fortnite was not coming to the Steam Deck. Especially considering that they had even gone to court to get their game to appear on mobile devices without any interference from Google. Sweeney’s response has been concise, but not clear: “if we only had a few more programmers… I wish they had tens of millions of users, at which point it would make sense to support it”. A spurious argument that, moreover, is as easy to dismantle as almost everything Sweeney says in the interview.

On one hand, it states that it is a human problem. They don’t have enough programmers. The reality is that, only during 2023, Epic has laid off 830 employees. Around 16% of its workforce. If they hadn’t laid them off, it doesn’t seem like not having enough programmers could be a problem.

On the other hand, he claims that the problem is the installed base of Steam Decks. While he does not give a clear answer to the question, which in itself shows that he is not interested in answering, what he wants to convey here is that Fortnite is not profitable on Steam Deck because it would be very expensive to develop. Which has already been proven to be a lie. First, because both Valve and Epic stated in November 2021 that Epic’s proprietary anti-cheat should be something easy to solve. Second, because even if they don’t want to release Fortnite on Steam, third-party applications allow you to install the Epic Games Launcher on the Steam Deck. Demonstrating that they don’t do it for other kinds of interests.

What are those interests? Tim Sweeney wants to be the Caesar instead of the Caesar. His problem is that he doesn’t want to publish his games on the competition’s store. Which is legitimate, but it makes it absurd, and deeply insulting, that he answers in that way. Because the answer is clear. Fortnite is not possible on Steam Deck because that would make Valve’s device more attractive, and that is something that Tim Sweeney, and his interest in replacing Steam with the Epic Games Store as the ultimate game store, cannot allow.

And sometimes, the most convoluted answers are the most revealing ones.

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Better shots than retweets: 'Fortnite' is now worth more than Twitter

What would you do if you had $44 billion left over? Elon Musk seems to have it clear: he bought Twitter so he could play with it.

The day Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s offices with a sink in his hands marked the beginning of the infamy that has led to the downfall of the once indispensable social network as a series of blunders, from the removal of the circles to the placement of a giant illuminated ‘X’ that polluted the luminosity of the rest of San Francisco. And all of this… only to end up losing an enormous amount of money.

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An epic investment

What would you do if you had an extra $44 billion? Elon Musk seems to have known exactly what to do: he bought Twitter so he could play with it. A year later, it is estimated that the social network is worth between 50% and 90% less (i.e., between $4 billion and $19 billion). The truth probably lies in the middle, around $15 billion, which is less than the current value of Epic Games, the developer of ‘Fortnite.

And after a financing round where they raised -attention- an additional $1.78 billion, right now it’s worth $17.3 billion (and rising). So, if Musk, instead of wanting to argue, had wanted to shoot to vent, he might have made one of the best investments in history.

223 million people use ‘Fortnite’ monthly compared to the 528 million who do the same on Twitter. However, Twitter Blue can’t compete, not by a long shot, in popularity with Epic’s microtransactions. Perhaps in the future, the strategy of the world’s richest person will succeed, and we’ll be using the social network of the former little bird to access our bank and do everything he wants us to do, but it doesn’t seem likely.

On the other hand, ‘Fortnite’ was not, like other pandemic games (eh, ‘Fall Guys’?), a one-day wonder, and even now, it is at its peak of popularity. The Gen Z throwing the floss dance in the face of the old folks. We brought it upon ourselves, truth be told.

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Is Fortnite advancing the return of Chapter 1? It seems so

Fortnite seems like it will return to its roots, since several posts on social media have hinted that we will return to Chapter 1 of the game, but in what way?

Fortnite was launched in early access in 2017. While its resounding success wouldn’t come until much later, it is undeniable that the game has an economic and cultural impact that is hard to quantify without considering what it means for an entire generation. Ultimately, it’s a game that, for many children, is the one they grew up with. For this reason, because it has accompanied them into adolescence or even their early adulthood, there are people who already feel nostalgia for Fortnite. And this is something that Epic Games is well aware of.

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This is demonstrated by the fact that Fortnite’s Twitter account shared an image of the classic Battle Bus from Chapter 1. With a concise message, “Sprint (or Mantle, your choice) back to Chapter 1….see you soon 11.3.2023” — or “Sprint (o Mantle, lo que más te guste) de vuelta al Capítulo 1… nos vemos pronto 3-11-2023” in Spanish — along with the hashtag FortniteOG, they leave us with little doubt about what’s coming for one of the most played online games in the world.

And if there were any doubts, the people at Epic are making sure there aren’t. Not when Epic’s Vice President and Co-founder, Mark Rein, tweeted just before that “the keyword for the next Fortnite season is: rewind!” This gives us the understanding that, indeed, we are going back in time.

But, what does this exactly imply? Most likely, we will return to play on the same map as in Chapter 1. The possibility that all the changes made over time will be reversed is too extreme, but taking a small nostalgic trip through that map that was the background noise of the community for so many years is an exceptional, intelligent idea that would make many people very happy. So it seems evident what is happening.

In any case, we won’t have to wait much longer. As the tweet rightly says, the mystery will be solved on November 3rd. Therefore, even if we still don’t know exactly what they are cooking up, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

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Are you going to play Alan Wake 2? Take a summary of the first game, it’s essential

It is one of the most anticipated games of the year and with good reason. Alan Wake is a game that we fell in love with last decade and this second installment promises to be better…

The folks at Remedy Entertainment are experts at creating games with compelling stories, realistic graphics, and top-notch experiences. And it’s quite an accomplishment, considering their budgets are never the highest. They call it talent.

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For that reason, the upcoming Alan Wake 2 is one of the most anticipated games of this year’s end. Moreover, it arrives just in time to premiere during the Halloween season. What better moment to experience fear than October 27th?

The trailers make it clear that the game will be truly ambitious, both in terms of the story, duration, and graphics. Sam Lake has truly gone all out: it looks like the Game of the Year for 2023, honestly.

The Alan Wake summary I was waiting for

Just over a week before Alan Wake 2, Remedy Entertainment has gone to work to bring fans up to speed. Fresh out of the oven, there’s now a video recap of everything that happened in the first game… back in 2010.

More than a simple story summary, the recap is a complete return to the original Alan Wake. Despite being a single installment, the game adopted an episodic format for its storytelling, with summaries at the beginning of each section.

The new video follows the style of those introductory sequences, with the voiceover by Matthew Perreta, the actor of Alan Wake, recounting the key moments from Alan’s arrival in Bright Falls to his entrapment in the Dark Place.

Next, the video moves forward to show us the setting of Alan Wake 2. Alan is at risk of losing his mind, which leads him to harness the power of the Dark Place to bring a new story to life, hoping to escape.

We also get a brief glimpse of the gameplay, showcasing the dynamic world type that Remedy fans will be familiar with from Control, but that shouldn’t be new to anyone keeping up with this survival horror sequel.

Release date of Alan Wake and platforms

Alan Wake 2 has been long-awaited, but the wait is about to end. The game will be released on October 27, 2023, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X, with free and paid DLCs planned.

The PC version of the game will only be available through the Epic Games Store, as Epic is acting as the publisher this time, as it did previously with Alan Wake Remastered in 2021. Hopefully, the exclusivity is temporary.

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Epic Games increases the price of Unreal Engine, but not for game developers

In recent days, Epic Games has been in the news due to a highly publicized wave of layoffs in which the company let go of up to 16% of its employees, significantly affecting the studio responsible for Fall Guys, Mediatonic. Now, just recently, the company has confirmed that it will increase the price for using Unreal Engine, although this change appears to have no effect on game development studios using this engine.

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Epic Games’ CEO, Tim Sweeney, himself made the announcement during a presentation at Unreal Fest 2023 (via Game From Scratch). With this announcement, the executive confirmed that developers from the film, television, automotive, and other industries not related to game development will have to start paying a per-seat license fee, similar to what a user pays for using software like Photoshop, for example.

The price for using Unreal Engine is increasing, but not for video game developers

While this seems to be a quite substantial change in the company’s policy, it’s worth noting that video game developers will not be affected by this increase in the price of the graphic engine by the creators of Fortnite. The company will continue to collect royalties when titles generate more than 1 million dollars in revenue. Additionally, Sweeney also wanted to make it clear that educators and students will still be able to use the engine at no cost.

On the other hand, there are also certain exceptions for a certain part of the film industry, as independent filmmakers will have to surpass a minimum threshold of revenue to have to pay for the use of Unreal Engine. That threshold will also apply to other commercial productions that earn less than certain amounts. The details of this threshold have not been disclosed yet, so we’ll have to stay tuned to learn more about this.

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This announcement comes days after all the turmoil surrounding the new pricing model introduced by Unity, although it did not succeed as developers protested vehemently against the decision. Now, Unity has opted for more conciliatory measures. In this context, Epic Games’ move doesn’t seem to be a drastic change, but it’s true that the Fortnite creators had already reached this point while being in the spotlight for their aforementioned wave of layoffs.