Six Years later, Fortnite still looks really great

All jokes aside about Fortnite’s prolonged development cycle — it was first announced in 2011 at the long-gone VGAs — the game still looks super appealing to this day. Epic finally put a date on the game last week and have spun up the PR machine leading up to its oh-that’s-soon July 25th release.

We’ll surely see a demo coming out of E3 but for now the trailer above pretty much has me sold. It was originally pitched as “Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead” but the mazes of traps on display recall gleeful memories of Orcs Must Die. I also seem to remember the forts being pretty small the last time I saw the game in action. Now we’re talking about bases so big you can use boost jump pads to launch around inside them. Designing and defending something of that scale should be hilarious, and then sad, and then hilarious again.

All told, I’m still not sure I’ll buy it, even at the Standard Edition price of $39.99 but, umm, I’m glad it’s finally happening. Those more dedicated than myself can spend up to $150 for various “limited edition” bonuses if you pre-order on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 or PC before the launch.