Fortnite

Genre: Compilation / Open-World Third-Person Shooter

Players: 1-100 Competitive (Online), 100 Team Competitive (Online), 1-8 Co-Op (Online), 52 (Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

I first reviewed the Nintendo Switch version of Fortnite over five years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Fortnite is arguably no longer a game so much as a gaming platform, with numerous games housed within it. What’s more, my own review style has changed, and I feel like I would do quite a bit differently reviewing Fortnite today as opposed to a half a decade ago. With a version of Fortnite releasing on launch day with the Nintendo Switch 2, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisit this game again, and explore what this game looks like today.

Fortnite originally released in 2017 as Fortnite: Save the World, a paid early access game that released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This game was an online cooperative game that had players working together to take on computer-controlled enemies… and this game mode would get completely overtaken later that same year by Fortnite Battle Royale, the game mode that players tend to associate the most with Fortnite today.

Unlike Fortnite: Save the World, which split off to become a separate thing, Fortnite: Battle Royale was a free-to-play online-focused game, with a version of this game releasing on Nintendo Switch in 2018, and a version for Nintendo Switch 2 releasing with the launch of that game console in 2025. Being free-to-play means that on both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, there is no need to be subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online to play this game, though you will still need to be online to play the game.

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Battle Royale

The primary game mode of Fortnite is still Battle Royale, which as the name indicates is a “battle royale”-style Third-Person Shooter, where players air drop onto a massive Open-World map, gather resources and weapons, and hunt down other players while a shrinking circle at the center of a deadly storm forces players into an increasingly small space.

There’s an additional gameplay mechanic here where players can build structures to protect from enemy attacks, gain a greater vantage point, or confuse enemies. Personally, I found this mechanic overly-complex to mess within a game where a firefight could potentially break out at any time, but this does add a potential strategic element to the gameplay that’s pretty unique, for those who care to make use of it.

As time goes on, this game has changed in numerous ways – vehicles have been introduced, the game now uses an entirely new map, and new gameplay mechanics have come and gone with different waves and seasons. For example, as I write this, last week the game had a Star Wars tie-in, which meant that weapons shot an endless supply of lasers instead of bullets, there were vehicles like Tie Fighters that players could use to fly around the map, and players could even find themselves jumping into a portal with a Jedi or Sith master to transform into a lightsaber-wielding, force-empowered fighter. Now this week, there’s a superhero theme featuring DC superheroes like Superman and superpower-themed power-ups.

This licensed content is, I am sure, only temporary, but it will undoubtedly be replaced with new licensed content in the future. In the past there have been other collaborations with Marvel, the NFL, the Disney film Ralph Breaks the Internet, John Wick, Stranger Things, and others. One of the things about Fortnite that surely keeps players coming back is the curiosity to see what new crossover event is happening this time.

However, this is all just the beginning…

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Battle RoyaleS?

The standard Battle Royale is just one game mode, but there are numerous variations and permutations of this. In addition to the standard Battle Royale, there’s also Fortnite OG, a game mode that brings back the original map and weapons, letting players play Battle Royale as it was originally released. There’s also Reload, a team game mode that lets players respawn over time as long as someone on their team remains alive. There’s Ballistic, a 5v5 round-based game. There’s Zero Build, a game mode that lets players fight it out without Fortnite’s signature building mechanic. Team Rumble, a more traditional points-based Team Deathmatch mode. And all of these game modes are offered in both standard and ranked modes depending on how serious or casual you want to play.

Then of course there are temporary game modes that come and go on a limited-time basis, such as LEGO Fortnite Star Wars Rapid Survival, which as I type this has already been removed, and by the time you read this it may well have been replaced by one or more other game modes.

Oh, but we’re not done yet. Those are all variations of the core Fortnite gameplay, and I started by saying that Fortnite has become something more. Let’s move to talking about that, shall we?

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Creative Experiences

In addition to the standard Third-Person Shooter gameplay, Fortnite also has Party Royale, a non-combat gameplay mode that lets players explore the map, socialize, and build without worrying about competing with others. There’s also Creative mode, where players get their own small private island to build on and socialize with others.

However, when we talk about how Fortnite has truly expanded to other types of games, we’re looking at Fortnite Experiences, new game modes that play in a completely different manner entirely.

LEGO Fortnite Odyssey is a Third-Person Survival Adventure game, where players work together cooperatively to explore an Open World, gather resources, and gradually gain the ability to craft a variety of helpful workstations, items, and other things. This gameplay mode is far closer to something line Minecraft (without the digging) than it is to Fortnite Battle Royale, and I can absolutely see players who hate the Battle Royale mode loving this gameplay mode.

LEGO Brick Life is a Third-Person Life Simulation game akin to something like Second Life, a LEGO-themed world where players get a place to stay and can hang out with others in a peaceful setting. I personally didn’t find this game mode to my liking, but I’m sure there are others out there who might like it.

Rocket Racing is an Arcade-style Racing game developed by Psyonix, the makers of Rocket League, and it is a wonderful Racing Game with some creative gameplay mechanics that have you drift-boosting, briefly flying, wall-riding and even ceiling-riding at times. The gameplay here has nothing to do with Fortnite at all whatsoever, aside from being delivered on the Fortnite platform.

There’s also Fortnite Festival, a game mode designed by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, who deliver here a somewhat similar Music-Rhythm experience to those game franchises, with a rotating selection of music ranging from in-house themes to music from artists like Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd, and Hatsune Miku, and even some Star Wars themes (tying in with the current collaboration). Other versions of Fortnite support legacy guitar controllers for this game mode, but unfortunately getting this to work on Nintendo Switch requires Frankensteining together some combination of retro console guitar controllers and adapters that I’m dubious will be worth the effort. Still, the game plays fine tapping out the rhythms on a standard gamepad.

For the most part, these gameplay modes are all well-crafted and well worth playing in their own right. And if allllll of that still isn’t enough, there are also a massive number of user-created game modes available to players, including collaborations with Fall Guys, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and others. There is pretty much no way I could ever review all of the content Fortnite allows access to right now, and in fact I can’t even tell you everything this game includes. There’s just far, far too much.

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Fracture

This leads me to the major problems Fortnite has – one present on all platforms, and one that’s specifically regarding the Nintendo Switch.

For the former, one of Fortnite’s biggest problems is that it is intimidating, confusing, and it’s often unclear what to do or what you even can do. It took me some searching in-game to figure out how to get to the official Epic-crafted game modes, and it’s not always easy to distinguish those from the user-created ones.

What’s more, very few of these game modes provide useful tutorials, meaning that every time you play a new game mode it feels like being tossed into the deep end and trying to figure out how to swim… while people are firing potshots at you. For a game that’s popular for just about all ages, Fortnite is surprisingly user-unfriendly.

The other issue Fortnite has on Nintendo Switch specifically is that the game’s performance is pretty lousy. In my original review I glossed over this because the game still generally looks good, with a great colorful slightly-cartoony style and it’s impressive that its massive Open World maps work on Nintendo Switch at all, but once you look past that… yeah, this game suffers from a low resolution, the framerate dips at times, there’s absolutely tons of pop-in, shadow pop-in, blurry textures… this game is still playable on Nintendo Switch, but this version is clearly highly-compromised when it comes to visuals and performance.

I suppose I should mention that the Nintendo Switch version of the game does have a silver lining, as this version of the game supports gyroscopic motion controls (and actually has a pretty extensive options menu for adjusting this feature to your liking.

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The Big Bang

So, after all of that, what do I think of Fortnite on Nintendo Switch? It’s massive, it’s messy, it’s bursting with variety but also burdened by a confusing presentation and lacking when it comes to user-friendly design. And the Nintendo Switch in surely the worst platform to play this game on, with numerous issues with its performance that make this game less than ideal, though still perfectly playable. However, given that this is free-to-play, and it presents players with an absolute treasure trove of a wide variety of gameplay choices, I would still say that if Nintendo Switch is your only gameplay platform, you should still consider this game to be a must-play on Nintendo Switch. If you have another gaming platform to play it on, maybe play it there instead, though.

tl;dr – Fortnite’s early days may have been as a Free-to-Play online multiplayer-focused “battle royale”-style Third-Person Shooter, but it has since blossomed into a massive game platform with a wide variety of different game types to enjoy, and just about all of them are fantastic. It’s intimidating, poorly-organized, confusing, and not very user-friendly to newer players, and the Nintendo Switch version has some ugly performance issues that make it one of the worst ways to play the game, but none of that changes that this is still a truly must-play game.

Grade: A-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Fortnite

Genre: Compilation / Open-World Third-Person Shooter

Players: 1-100 Competitive (Online), 100 Team Competitive (Online), 1-8 Co-Op (Online), 52 (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

Launching alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025, Fortnite is one of the select few games that Nintendo has confirmed the original Nintendo Switch version of the game will not work on Nintendo Switch 2 via backwards-compatibility, but this also doesn’t matter because it’s a free-to-play game and the Nintendo Switch 2 is getting its own console-specific release of the game.

In fact, “doesn’t matter” is underselling it, because the Nintendo Switch 2 getting its own version gives this game a chance to address one of the biggest issues plaguing the original Nintendo Switch version – graphics and performance. To that end, Fotnite looks much cleaner on Nintendo Switch 2, with a much better resolution, better framerates, and far less pop-in. Granted, it’s not perfect – there’s still some pop-in, but it’s far more playable.

There’s another new feature here, and that’s mouse mode support. I can absolutely see some players using this as their primary means of aiming, but I was frustrated by the fact that enabling mouse mode disables both the right analog stick and gyroscopic controls – in fact you have to manually disable gyroscopic motion controls to even get mouse mode to work. Unlike the upcoming Metroid Prime 4: Echoes, the game doesn’t seamlessly transition from one to the other when you place the Joy-Con 2 on a surface. In other words, you need to decide between either mouse mode, or standard analog controls with or without gyroscope controls, you can’t have both. For me personally, I had to pick the latter.

Still, regardless of whether or not you prefer the mouse controls on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, the improvements to graphics and performance absolutely make this a better version of the game, and since it’s free, and has a lot of variety to offer (even some you may not expect from Fortnite), I think you owe it to yourself to give this game another try on Nintendo Switch 2

tl;dr – Fortnite’s early days may have been as a Free-to-Play online multiplayer-focused “battle royale”-style Third-Person Shooter, but it has since blossomed into a massive game platform with a wide variety of different game types to enjoy, and just about all of them are fantastic. It’s intimidating, poorly-organized, confusing, and not very user-friendly to newer players, but none of that changes that this is still a truly must-play game, and the Nintendo Switch 2 is a far superior way to play it compared to the original Nintendo Switch.

Grade: A

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