Fortnite: Save the World Will No Longer Become Free

Remember how Fortnite launched as a paid early access PVE experience, rather than the free Battle Royale monolith it is now? Well, Save the World, which is what the main mode was renamed to following the BR’s massive success, will now no longer become free as previously suggested.

This comes with the announcement that Save the World will finally come out of Early Access after a period of nearly three years, which will mean there will be no more Early Access tags whenever you boot up Fortnite. So that’s one mystery out of the way: Fortnite is now a fully launched game.

Here’s what Epic have to say about the announcement:

“Today we’re bringing Save the World out of Early Access and have decided that it will remain a premium experience rather than going free-to-play. Development of new content will slow down after this official release, but the adventure doesn’t end here for Save the World.”

Those future updates include Ventures, which will be a “new season-long excursion that takes place in a seasonal zone with new and unique modifiers to tackle”. More information is to come on this feature in the future.

This is quite the obvious blow for Save the World, which has been seriously overshadowed by Battle Royale since almost the second the latter launched. Save the World really could have done with that shot in the arm by it also going free-to-play, and while Epic promised new updates to come for the mode, it can’t help but feel like this might be the beginning of the end for it.

On top of this, Save the World will no longer let you use your skins from Battle Royale, a feature that was only just recently introduced. You will still be able to use the ones you already integrated, but no new ones.

Something did already seem off with Save the World fulfilling its promise to go free-to-play, especially when it was scheduled to do so in 2018 but Epic later changed their plans. They mentioned next to nothing about their plans until today.

What this almost certainly means is that Save the World will be continued to be considered as something of an afterthought by Epic, with the game apparently already having very few developers still working on it. It’s a massive shame, too: Save the World might not be for everyone, but it certainly had something about it to help it stand out from Battle Royale. There’s certainly something special, just apparently not enough for Epic to give it their all.

It’s also just a strange situation. This is how Fortnite launched, flaws and all, so to see its PVE more or less be shunted to the side to make way for the money earner is such an unusual thing to happen. Save the World still makes money, but it must be an absolute pittance compared to Battle Royale.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time, in truth. Very little of Save the World has been mentioned over the past year of so, and nowadays Epic call Fortnite: Battle Royale just Fortnite. While Battle Royale’s development continues on its rocket-powered cycle to constant updates and events, Save the World has been seriously left behind.

I guess the only thing that’s really keeping Save the World alive is that you can still earn V-Bucks without paying, which can then be used in Battle Royale. It’s not a huge amount of in-game currency, but every little helps.

Fans of Save the World are obviously unhappy with this decision, which they feel will be the death knell for the game, alongside the fact that it looks like development is slowing down even more than previously. #SaveSaveTheWorld is currently starting to trend on Twitter, but who knows what kind of dent it will make.

Fortnite: Battle Royale Chapter 2 – Season 3 is free-to-play on PC via the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.

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