Sophomores play Fortnite during their free time

Sophomore Megan Chen was video-calling sophomore Prosper Chiu. Her homework was laid out on her desk, but her eyes were fixed on her laptop screen as her avatar from the game Fortnite moved through the tall grass. She waited as Chiu told her where to go and what to do.

Battle royale games — or last man standing shooter games — have become increasingly popular as people have lost interest in first-person and team-based shooter games. One battle royale game in particular is gaining more and more traction in both the professional gaming world and among teens: Fortnite.

Rapper Drake and professional Fortnite player “Ninja” recently set a record playing Fortnite on Twitch, a streaming service that allows people to watch others play video games. On March 15, they were able to attract over 600,000 viewers on their livestream, smashing the previous record of 388,000.

Chen had started playing Rules of Survival, another battle royale game, on her phone after her friend sophomore Ravina Patel introduced the game to her. But while Chen was playing Rules of Survival, many of her friends told her that it’s very similar to Fortnite and suggested that she try Fortnite instead.  

Released the summer of last year, Fortnite’s basic gameplay is simple: Players are dropped into a map and must find their own weapons. It is available on the Xbox, PlayStation, PC and Mac.

Sophomore Brian Fok, who also plays Fortnite, attributes its success to its smaller map, which leads to far more interactions with other players and opportunities to fight.

“Unlike other battle royale games, Fortnite has a smaller map and allows you to build,” said Fok. “Building adds to the skill gap because now, it's not just about shooting — it's about building around someone. The smaller map means you find people more often than in other battle royale games, so you fight more.”

Chen revealed that rather than shooting, she enjoys the building aspect of Fortnite more because she lacks experience playing shooter games.

Fok enjoys the building aspect of Fortnite as well, and often likes to “build around people and make them confused.”

However, unlike Chen, Fok plays with students from Los Gatos High School that he’s met through playing other games like Overwatch, which — unlike Fortnite — is a standard first-person shooter game. The key differences between Overwatch and Fortnite, as well as team-based shooter and battle royale games in general, is that in team-based shooter games, players respawn after dying and are ranked based on the number of wins their team has and individual performance compared to other team members. Fortnite and Overwatch both have various game modes in which players can individually or in a team; however, only team games in Overwatch are ranked.

In addition, Fortnite is free while the standard edition of Overwatch can cost $20 to $30, so many students opt for other games. Both games are also very time consuming and many students ultimately quit after a while. Because of Overwatch’s lack of popularity among SHS students, Fok plays video games in general with Los Gatos students who help increase his rank in Overwatch more.

“In Fortnite, there’s no direct result of getting better and you can’t push your rank further like in Overwatch,” said Fok. “On the weekends, I play mainly play Overwatch but frequently play Fortnite as well, because Fortnite is more casual and less about winning.”

Chen, Patel and Chiu often play Fortnite together on weekends and with other sophomores from their classes. While Chen says that “[her] friends stopped talking to her for a while because [she] was playing [Rules of Survival on her phone] too much,” Fortnite can’t really be played at school so she’s now able to maintain healthy relationships with her friends.

“Fortnite takes up way too much time, but its still really fun,” said Chen. “For now, I only play on the weekends, but the mobile version of Fortnite just came out so my friends might stop talking to me again.”