Epic Games
Update (June 12, 2018): A port of Fortnite has been confirmed and is releasing today at 10 a.m. PT.
Original Story: Fortnite is the biggest game on the market right now with over 45 million players and 3 million concurrent players, according to PC Games N. Epic Games turned its underplayed PvE game into a cultural phenomenon with the release of its battle royale mode on September 26, 2017. Today the game has taken the crown worn by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and engaged players across all the major gaming platforms and even mobile devices.
All the gaming platforms except one.
The game has yet to release on the Nintendo Switch. But according to a recent rumor, that may be quickly remedied. Here’s everything you need to know about Fortnite Switch.
What to Expect
Epic Games
As we reported back in March, a Twitter user by the name of Marcus Sellars claimed that Fortnite is coming to the Switch around August and September of this year.
Now a user by the name of LeakyPandy, who correctly predicted the Nintendo Direct presentation in March a few days before it was announced, has dove deeper into the possibility of Fortnite on the Switch.
On April 10, 2018, LeakyPanda tweeted that they’ve heard about a Switch Port since before establishing their old account of @vandal_leaks. However due to the contradictory nature of the statements they’ve received regarding the port, they decided not to share any information at the time.
Today, April 26, 2018, they’ve decided to release a portion of the information they have.
Keep in mind that LeakyPandy themselves said that this info is still in the rumor phase. They have been exposed to lots of contradicting information about specifics but after looking at it they decided to share the information they believe to be the most reliable, coherent, and reasonable. They’ll also give an update if they learn of any new information. With that out of the way, let’s see what they have to say.
LeakyPandy previously said in March that Fortnite and Fortnite: Battle Royale are two different products and that people should remind themselves of this when reading about rumors. They said this because at the time they have been informed that the PvE “Save the World” section of Fortnite and the Battle Royale section would release one after another and not at the same time. Now they’re not sure.
According to LeakyPandy, most of the interesting information about the alleged Fortnite on the Switch concerns Save the World. Save the World was the game mode that initially made up the entirety of Fortnite when it first launched on July 25, 2017, where players built up forts and traps to fend off hordes of enemies.
None of the info they received indicated that the Battle Royale portion would be all that different. That includes cross platform play.
As for the Save the World portion, it apparently got Nintendo’s attention according to the leaker. You see, the Save the World mode on console has players teaming up online. Their most trusted source said that the Switch version would have four player local co-op with up to four Switch systems connecting to one another.
But that’s not the only additional feature that would come to the Switch version of Save the World. The mode will also feature “exclusive Nintendo IP related content” which would obviously be exclusive just to the Switch.
In addition, it was suggested that there are marketing plans to tie the duality of the game with the duality of the Switch. The Battle Royale mode would be advertised as the way to play the game while the Switch is in TV mode and Save the World would be advertised as the way to play Fortnite on the go. However this particular bit of information is a little shaky.
Fortnite coming at all to Switch is expected, and that’s not just because it’s huge. Epic Games are behind the Unreal Engine 4 which Fortnite runs on and the Switch has supported the engine since day one according to Polygon. They also teamed up with Nintendo to release the full source code of the engine for the Switch to approved developers for free according to a blog post.
The Battle Royale portion not changing much doesn’t surprise us. People like the game just the way it is. Hopefully it will just retain the latest version of the game. Plus cross play is expected as Switch versions of games like Minecraft and Rocket League support the feature and were big selling points.
It’s strange that Nintendo would focus so much on the forgotten Save the World mode. It would be even stranger if they decide to release the mode first and then the Battle Royale mode later. However if it is true that local co-op is supported then it would be a pretty big selling point as none of the current versions of Save the World support local co-op according to All Gamers.
As for the exclusive Nintendo-related content, that doesn’t surprise us one bit. The Wii U and Switch versions of Minecraft supported the Super Mario Mash-up Pack which included new skins, a pre-made world, and a set of music and item textures all inspired by the Super Mario games. The upcoming Switch version of Dark Souls Remastered is getting compatibility with a special Amiibo figure modeled after Solaire of Astora. So getting exclusive content for Fortnite would be pretty sweet. Imagine building brick walls modeled after the reddish brown castle walls of Super Mario Bros. for the NES. We’re also hoping that the Nintendo-themed content would come to the Battle Royale mode. Nintendo-themed costumes would sell like hotcakes in the in-game shop.
The marketing plan to advertise Battle Royale for TV mode and Save the World for Handheld mode would make sense. Battle Royale requires a constant internet connection with a hundred players at a time and the Switch needs a Wi-Fi connection to access online features so that limits the mode’s viability for portability. Save the World works much better for handheld mode especially if local co-op is a feature since it’s just four players against computer-controlled enemies.
Update (June 1, 2018): A listing for Fortnite on Switch has popped up on the Game Rating and Administration Committee, Korean’s game ratings board. This comes after an anonymous user on 4chan allegedly leaked a document from someone who arranges E3 showroom displays, which contains a list of games including Fortnite.
Update (June 5, 2018): A data miner who goes by Michael on Twitter has discovered evidence of an update and icon of Fortnite on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
Tired: Revealing new games during an E3 presentation
Wired: Announcing new games by pushing an update for them to the eShop.
Heh.
Update (June 11, 2018): Dataminers found evidence of a listing for Fortnite in the eShop indicating that the game will release on the system on June 12, the day of Nintendo’s E3 2018 presentation.
When to Expect It
Epic Games
According to LeakyPandy, the alleged Switch version of Fortnite may be revealed during Nintendo’s E3 2018 presentation.
That would make sense. Fortnite is currently the biggest game out there, so why not advertise it during the biggest press conference of the year? If it does appear then, we’ll probably get a release date as well.
With Nintendo set to dive into Super Smash Bros. for Switch, Metroid Prime 4, Mario Kart Tour, Fire Emblem 2018, Bayonetta 3, and more for their E3 presentation, they could very much steal the show if they add Fortnite for Switch to that lineup. We’ll just have to wait and see if any of the rumors turn out to be true.
What do you think? How plausible are the rumors and speculations? Let us know in the comment section below.
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