Fort Craft Battle Royale 3D

Pros

• Large map
• Many characters, biomes and weapons
• Runs well on less powerful devices

Cons

• Fortnite clone

FortCraft Battle Royale 3D delivers a last-man-standing experience in a shooter arena.

Fortnite by Epic Games is not the first battle royale game ever created, but it is arguably the most successful and certainly the title that popularized the genre with the casual audience. It is a game that attracts adult gamers but is big with 13-year olds as well. The game is free to play. Epic Games makes its money through cosmetic microtransactions, but it also has a battle pass system in place through which the most active players can actually earn those cosmetic without paying anything at all.

For those who may not what a battle royale is, it a shooter in which one player or a team of players must be the last standing. There is usually resource hunting. There are weapons and, of course, gun battles and player demise. This genre also has a time constraint. A deadly circular wall continues to close in so that players are forced into contests and inevitably the finale. Fortnite also has its own twist in that players can build defensives and staircases and even entire structures with traps and the like.

So, why all this talk about Fortnite in a review about FortCraft? Well, the success of Fortnite has inspired many other game companies to enter the fray and try to strike while the iron is hot. Many of them seek to put their own spin on the genre much as Epic did by adding fort building to the model that PUBG was having so much success with. Other companies have sought success simply by copying what games like Fortnite and PUBG had done. This is the case with FortCraft.

FortCraft is an unapologetic clone of Fortnite in almost every way. The art style is heavily derivative. The mechanics—including the building—are all the same with just enough tweaks presumably to avoid a lawsuit. It also features cosmetic microtransactions and even has its own take on the battle pass so that you actually have a shot at these cosmetics without having to pay.

If you can overlook the unabashed clone aspect, the game is quite good. It did beat Fortnite to mobile, so at one time this was the only option you had on many phones and tablets. It also streamlined the building to be much easier on mobile devices, which is something Fortnite has struggled with.

Once Fortnite made it to mobile, however, it quickly became a matter of what the point is. Just about everything FortCraft does, Fortnite did first and does better. FortCraft is a little less ambitious performance-wise, so if your device struggles with Fortnite, that may be a reason to give FortCraft a go. If you cannot get over the learning curve that comes with Fortnite, then that may also be a reason to try this game.

Pros

• Large map
• Many characters, biomes and weapons
• Runs well on less powerful devices

Cons

• Fortnite clone