Franchise · Tertiary · since 2017
Fortnite
Chapter 1, seasons three to seven: that is the Fortnite I mean. Omega at tier one hundred, the meteor in Dusty Depot, the rifts, and Kevin rolling across the map. I stopped playing properly around season nine and now I only turn up for the big events, which are still unlike anything else in games.
Brace for impact.
Season 4, May 2018
For about eighteen months Fortnite was the most interesting thing happening in games, and seasons three through seven are that whole stretch. One island, learned by heart. One idea per season, committed to completely: a meteor, then rifts, then a cube that moved on its own. And a map that visibly changed while you were living on it, which nothing else was doing at that scale.
Omega came out of the middle of it and is still the best skin the game has made. Not because of how it looked, though it looked like the final boss, but because you built it a piece at a time, and a finished one in a lobby told everybody exactly how much of that season you had lived through.
Wood, stone, metal
Wood goes up fastest and breaks fastest. Metal takes the longest to reach full health and stops almost anything once it does. Choosing between them mid-fight is the actual skill.
Four pieces, one key each, and the whole ceiling of the game is how fast your hands can put a box around you and then cut a window in it.