Fortnite

When Epic Games released Fortnite in July 2017, it didn't know at the time that it was about to change the video game world forever. Of course, it didn't change everything overnight. In fact, it didn't even change things with that initial launch. It wasn't until the battle royale mode launched a couple of months later in September 2017 that the real change started to occur.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Fortnite has been a phenomenon like no other. Here's everything we know about the battle royale phenomenon turned platform.

Release Date, Platforms, Pricing

Fortnite was initially released on July 21, 2017, though the mode that made the game famous, its battle royale mode, wouldn't arrive until September 12, 2017. It has always been a free-to-play game, with in-game microtransactions available for players. It was initially available on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, though over time it has been made available on every current-gen console platform and mobile device available. Fortnite is everywhere you want it to be in 2025, with ways to play the game on almost any device you like, no matter its hardware capabilities.

Every premium microtransaction in Fortnite is made with its in-game premium currency called V-Bucks, which can be purchased in bundles of 1,000, 2,800, 5,000, and 13,500. V-Bucks can go on sale and have increased in price in the past, but the current pricing for each bundle is:

• 1,000 V-Bucks=$8.99 USD
• 2,800 V-Bucks=$22.99 USD
• 5,000 V-Bucks=$36.99 USD
• 13,500 V-Bucks=$89.99 USD

In-game skins, battle passes, and premium collaborations will be priced in V-Bucks, and like most live service games that came after Fortnite, V-Bucks can only be purchased in bundles that put you just below being able to acquire a premium skin, or force you to purchase more V-Bucks then you'd need, leaving you with a surplus (though not necessarily enough to buy two premium items).

Genre, Setting, and Story Premise

Nowadays, it's difficult to put Fortnite into a particular genre, because the reality is, when you throw in Fortnite Creative mode and the Fortnite Islands you can visit, Fortnite is any genre of game you want it to be. It's a racer, a rhythm game, a first-person shooter, a third-person shooter, a platformer. Whatever you want to build, Fortnite can become that.

But to keep things simple, let's stick to the core gameplay modes that made the game as popular as it is. Fortnite is a third-person battle royale shooter, where players are not only managing their weapon loadouts, but building and deconstructing wooden structures for a myriad of gameplay possibilities. Though mostly players build towers for extra cover and an extremely tall sniper's nest.

The storyline, which is there, however extrapolated it is, began with a simple premise. A company called IO created an island connecting every reality;100 players go in, one comes out, and the loop repeats. That also conveniently made it eternally easy for Epic Games to do every collaboration under the sun and get whatever characters you can think of into Fortnite.

That is at least how it started, all the way back in what's now known as Chapter 1, which includes the first eleven seasons, including Season 0. Now, we're all the way in Chapter 7, with each chapter including at least four seasons, if not more, so you can imagine how much has happened.

But the basic premise of Fortnite being set in a battle royale island that connects every reality ever has not changed, and will not change, so long as more characters from franchises you love can be made into Fortnite characters.

Every Chapter and Season in Fortnite so far

This section will continuously be updated, because Fortnite is consistently getting new seasons and eventually new chapters. So this list is always only as complete as it can be at the time of this writing.

• Chapter 1
  • Pre-Season (Season 0) - Sept. 12, 2017-Oct. 25, 2017
  • Season 1: First Steps - Oct. 26, 2017-Dec. 13, 2017
  • Season 2: Fort Knights - Dec. 14, 2017-Feb. 21, 2018
  • Season 3: Meteor Strike - Feb. 22, 2018-Apr. 30, 2018
  • Season 4: Brace for Impact - May 1, 2018-Jul. 11, 2018
  • Season 5: Worlds Collide - Jul. 12, 2018 - Sept. 26, 2018
  • Season 6: Darkness Rises - Sept. 27, 2018-Dec. 5, 2018
  • Season 7: You Better Watch Out - Dec. 6, 2018-Feb. 27, 2019
  • Season 8: X Marks the Spot - Feb. 28, 2019-May 8, 2019
  • Season 9: The Future is Yours - May 9, 2019-Jul. 31, 2019
  • Season X: Aug. 1, 2019-Oct. 13, 2019
• Chapter 2
  • Season 1: Drop Into a New World - Oct. 15, 2019-Feb. 19, 2020
  • Season 2: Top Secret - Feb. 20, 2020-Jun. 16, 2020
  • Season 3: Splashdown! - Jun. 17, 2020-Aug. 26, 2020
  • Season 4: Nexus War - Aug. 27, 2020-Dec. 1, 2020
  • Season 5: Zero Point - Dec. 2, 2020-Mar. 15, 2021
  • Season 6: Primal - Mar. 15, 2021-Jun. 7, 2021
  • Season 7: Invasion - Jun. 8 2021-Sept. 12, 2021
  • Season 8: Cubed - Sept. 13, 2021-Dec. 4, 2021
• Chapter 3
  • Season 1: Flipped - Dec. 5, 2021-Mar. 19, 2022
  • Season 2: Resistance - Mar. 20, 2022-Jun. 4, 2022
  • Season 3: Vibin' - Jun. 5, 2022-Sept. 17, 2022
  • Season 4: Paradise - Sept. 18, 2022-Dec. 3, 2022
• Chapter 4
  • Season 1: A New Beginning - Dec. 4, 2022-Mar. 9, 2023
  • Season 2: MEGA - Mar. 10, 2023-Jun. 8, 2023
  • Season 3: WILDS - Jun. 9, 2023-Aug. 24, 2023
  • Season 4: LAST RESORT - Aug. 25, 2023-Nov. 2, 2023
  • Season OG: Fortnite OG - Nov. 3, 2023-Dec. 2, 2023
• Chapter 5
  • Season 1: Underground - Dec. 3, 2023-Mar. 8, 2024
  • Season 2: Myths and Mortals - Mar. 9, 2024-May 24, 2024
  • Season 3: Wrecked - May 24, 2024-Aug. 15, 2024
  • Season 4: Absolute Doom - Aug. 16, 2024-Nov. 2, 2024
  • Season 5: Chapter 2 Remix - Nov. 2, 2024-Nov. 30, 2024
• Chapter 6
  • Season 1: HUNTERS - Dec. 1, 2024-Feb. 21, 2025
  • Season 2: Lawless - Feb. 21, 2025-May 2, 2025
  • Mini Season 1: Galactic Battle - May 2, 2025-June 7, 2025
  • Season 3: Super - Jun. 7, 2025-Aug. 7, 2025
  • Season 4: Shock 'N Awesome - Aug. 7, 2025-Nov. 1, 2025
  • Mini Season 2: The Simpsons - Nov. 1, 2025-Nov. 29, 2025
• Chapter 7
  • Season 1: Pacific Break - Nov. 29, 2025-Mar. 4, 2026

Like every season before it, Season 1 of Chapter 7 includes a few new things for players to keep in mind. A new island, the addition of Storm Surfing, and most importantly for players, self-revives. The new island, Golden Coast, turns the latest map into a Fortnite version of Hollywood, and features a Quentin Tarantino collaboration that also made history for fans of Tarantino's work, specifically his Kill Bill movies.

Gameplay

Describing the gameplay in Fortnite in 2025 runs into the same problems you have when trying to decide what genre to put the game in. Technically, the gameplay can be a whole host of things because of Fortnite Islands, which let you jump from entirely different kinds of games made within Fortnite, made either by Epic Games, other professional development studios, or just other users.

So, narrowing the scope down to just the core mode that initially put Fortnite on the map, Fortnite is a third-person battle royale action game/shooter, where players compete to be the last one standing out of 100 other competitors. You'll drop into a large map, search for loot to arm yourself, and (in the original build mode) gather resources like Wood, Stone, or Metal, to build structures that can help give you an advantage over other players with additional verticality and give you cover from opposing attacks.

Tech and Specs

Fortnite is famously not a very taxing game to run, no matter what hardware you have at your disposal. Technically speaking, with services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna, and NVIDIA GeForce NOW, you can play Fortnite on any device that can connect to those services.

If you have the hardware for it, then you can push Fortnite pretty far, as it supports ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS, and NVIDIA Reflex. But part of its appeal, particularly with its visual language, is that Fortnite doesn't need to be played on top-of-the-line hardware to look fairly decent and run at a solid frame rate.

On Windows, here are the official technical specifications from the game's listing on the Epic Games Store:

Fortnite is not available on Mac, though you can still play it on a Mac through the aforementioned cloud streaming services.

Here are the official technical specifications for Fortnite on Android devices:

• 64-bit Android on an ARM64 processor
• Android OS 10.0 or higher
• Minimum 4GB of RAM
• GPU:
  • Adreno 530 or higher
  • Mali-G71 MP20
  • Mali-G72 MP12 or higher

For iOS users, Fortnite is compatible with your device so long as you have at least 4GB of RAM and are running iOS 17.6.1 or higher. As a standard rule, iPhone 11 or higher models are compatible, save for the iPhone SE Generation 2 phones (iPhone SE 2020), which come with only 3GB of RAM.