For the last couple weeks, cube monsters have been rampaging through Fortnite matches (don’t call them zombies or you’ll hurt Epic Games’ feelings). But on Sunday, they, along with their namesake, disappeared from the game.
It was beautiful, but I was sad. Cube monsters have been my favourite thing to happen to the game since the introduction of the game’s 50v50 mode nearly a year ago. So I was relieved when I woke up this morning and learned they’d be sticking around for a little bit longer in the game’s new limited time mode, Team Terror.
Added to the game in today’s v6.22 update, Team Terror is essentially the game’s Fortnitemares event made into its own separate thing. Whoever still longs for Halloween hordes of glowy purple AI, like me, can get their fill of mixed PVP action in this mode.
Teams consist of 32 players each, and monster spawners are scattered across the map with new ones appearing every time the storm closes in. Team Terror is also resource rich, with a higher farming rate for materials, better drop rates, and wandering gold monsters, which can be hunted for Legendary loot.
The same way 50v50 helped open up more possibilities during matches by making you just as likely to be surrounded by allies as enemies, cube monsters also add a nice distraction from the normal grind of racing toward the center of the map while people snipe at you from their scrappy towers. It almost makes Fortnite feel like a MOBA. Almost.
Players in Fortnite’s Save the World mode have been working cooperatively to shred enemy waves for years now, but having cube monsters in the game’s competitive modes over the last couple weeks was also a good reminder that Fortnite can be fun in other iterations beyond brutal, zero-sum struggles for individual survival.
Even with tons of aggro monsters running around, the game is still distinctly a battle royale shooter. At the same time, having hordes to farm for shield boosts, extra ammo, and the occasional rare item opens up an alternate path to getting the W.
Farming monster spawns after a circle closes with a bunch of strangers, only to encounter a squad from the enemy team and have all hell break lose, is some of the most fun I’ve had in the game in recent memory. Most of all, the presence of monsters really cuts out the downtime in between looking for enemies to shoot at.
I’m relieved that Epic has found a way to keep this element around in PvP for at least a little longer. Who knows what’s next for the game now that Kevin the Cube went nova.
Someone could come back in time from a month from now and tell me, and I probably wouldn’t believe them. Whatever future updates bring, though, I hope they’ll make room for more monsters.
Comments
5 responses to “I Don’t Want Fortnite’s Cube Monsters To Go”
Sounds like they grabbed a bunch of monsters from the abandoned original fortnite game and dropped them in the royal to make dayz…?
I picture a future where people can set up private games, using everything that’s been vaulted to establish rulesets. There is that much stuff there now that you could easily create a system to build a ruleset, put it on a workshop type tool and let players vote.
So people that miss Kevin can bring him back, and maybe his cube monster buddies along the way. Or create 25v25v25v25 games or 10v10 smaller games, or something like that. Then if enough others want it, let it happen.
This is why I find a lot of online only games annoying. You enjoy something only to discover it’s time limited and a patch takes it away. I’d love to see more games where, as you suggest players could choose to utilise content they enjoy. We need to see that idea in more games.
I love it when games embrace player made content. It adds dimensions and ideas the developers never considered, and along the way has even created entire genres in some instances.
Counterstrike and DOTA being obvious examples, but going back to the dawn of FPS games, there were user mods for (I think) Doom for Vietnam and Alien that were downright innovative. Many other games built off the intensity those mods introduced.
For games like Fortnite it also means all the effort of the past isn’t necessarily wasted either. I think its been a missed opportunity a lot of times, and a hell of a lot of fun when games have gone down that road.
I can think of a couple of MMO’s that either did it well, or missed an opportunity to do similar. It just needs friendly tools, and you’re limited by imagination, and maybe extending the lifespan along the way.
The problem with MMOs compared to games like CS or Doom is the shared world. While you could argue that CS is a shared world since you’re playing with other people, the servers are much smaller with dozens of people and the world isn’t persistent like the MMOs. It’s super hard to integrate gameplay mods and custom maps (and other content) into an MMO.
I feel like some of the games today are leaning towards MMO thinking (like fortnite and it’s events) when it should lean more towards a CS/Doom ideal. Sure fortnite may have a lot more people in a match than say CS or Doom but I don’t feel like it needs to be a persistent world.