It took nearly three years, but Fortnite is finally shedding its Early Access label.
Fortnite‘s Battle Royale, Creative, and Save the World game modes are all leaving Early Access, Epic Games said on Tuesday. Fortnite launched on July 25, 2017 and has been regularly updated with new features, skins, and characters. It has also attracted more than 250 million players.
Epic also said that Save the World, a far less popular PvE mode than Battle Royale, will remain a premium purchase going forward instead of converting to a free-to-play option.
“Since the launch of Save the World’s Early Access period, we’ve added a vast collection of unique Heroes and Schematics, an overhaul of the Front End and Hero Loadouts, a weapon recombobulation system, a climactic narrative experience, and more that has shaped Save the World into a massive-collection-RPG experience,” Epic explained.
The company said Save the World’s main story is now “complete” and that it will slow down its development of new content for the game mode.
Epic said back in 2018 that it would convert Save the World to a free-to-play game in 2018. However, by the end of 2018, Epic reversed course and continued to require players to pay $40 for the Fornite Founder’s Pack to play Save the World.
To seemingly quell criticism from players who had expected the game to go free, Epic said Tuesday that anyone who bought a Founder’s Pack would automatically get their packs upgraded and all rewards unlocked at no charge. Those who own Fortnite’s Ultimate Edition are getting the Metal Team Leader Pack and 8,000 V-Bucks free of charge.
The Metal Team Leader Pack is a new addition to the game that comes with a new hero, the Papa Bear weapon schematic, and Metal Team leader challenges, among other features. It costs $20 for those who don’t qualify for the freebie.
Looking ahead, Epic said it’s working on a new Fortnite feature called Ventures. The company will have more to share as development continues but said Ventures will be “season-long excursions,” featuring a variety of challenges players will need to overcome to find new weapons and earn rewards. Epic didn’t announce a launch date.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.