Fortnite’s long-awaited “Playground” mode is finally out with the latest patch. It’s a freeform, Minecraft-like practice mode that will feel crucial to players who want a less chaotic environment in which to git gud.
In developer Epic Games’ words, one of Fortnite‘s biggest strategies is “just build lol.” Players who have mastered the art of swiftly erecting tall, sturdy forts faster than their opponents have a big edge. It’s not an easy skill to pick up.
Although matchmaking was spotty overnight, I played a few rounds of the mode, taking the opportunity to practice building my go-to fort over and over without anyone raining bullet hell down on me.
Playground mode gives players and their friends an hour to do whatever they want on the battle royale map. It’s exactly what Fortnite needs: a separate, controlled environment for players to mess around with the game’s tools and weapons. Players hop off the battle bus as usual, land wherever they want and then, it’s really just like a playground.
Thankfully, players receive ten times the normal resources when they’re mining, so it isn’t a grind to gather together enough wood to rehearse building emergency forts. Also, chest and ammo boxes spawn 100% of the time. I found some rare, fun weapons pretty early on and enjoyed not having to battle opponents over gold chests.
The writer throwing herself off a tall staircase to test respawning. It works.
Unlike a lot of other shooters’ practice modes, Playground mode has friendly fire automatically turned on, so a squad of players can practice aiming with each other. Respawns happen almost immediately — players dive off the Battle Bus again and can land wherever.
That means you can coerce your buddies into target practice with rare weapons you might not have mastered yet. Or you can push each other off ramps with shopping carts. Really — you have to do that. It’s the law.
Frankly, Playground mode should not only stay in the game, but it should have been in the game in the first place. It’s well-executed, yes, but controlled practice spaces are just mega-useful in shooters generally, and especially megapopular games like Fortnite where the skill ceiling is getting high. Now that Fortnite‘s endgame strategies are a little stale, a fact even Epic Games admits, hopefully Playground mode’s freeform ways will encourage a little creativity.
Unless you play with friends, however, Playground mode might not be totally chaos-free or productive; alone, it’s hard to really practice your marksmanship, but with randos, there might not be a lot of agreement on how to use the freeform mode. No matter what, it’s going to be great to see what players can do when they have all of Fortnite‘s features at their disposal.
Fortnite‘s latest patch also brought one of my favourite quality of life changes yet: map markers. Now, when your squadmates drop markers on the map hoping, maybe, one day, you’ll land somewhere nearby, those markers appear as coloured pillars of light on the actual landscape.
Fortnite also got dual pistols, which shoot simultaneously with one trigger-pull, and a bunch of balances to the submachine and shotguns. You can check out Fortnite‘s patch notes here.
Comments
4 responses to “Here’s How Fortnite’s New Playground Mode Works”
i just find the whole shooter/building mechanic odd and takes aways from the ‘shooter’ focus.
Like imagine playing COD, Quake, CS or whatever and you come under fire then say “no worries, just build a wall around me!” skillzzz
Not saying building fast isnt a skill, but just seems odd to me.
I agree.
I get that building is part of what makes Fortnite unique so I’m not saying they need to take it away, but coming from a shooter background I defiantly struggled getting better at Fortnite because of the whole building mechanic.
Glad I wasn’t the only one affected by it!
i find after being a big shooter fan that i try not to build around myself in those situations, i find myself saying “pussy” whenever i get the drop on someone and in the next second they’ve build fort knox 2.0 and i just run away.
but its a mechanic in the game so we cant really judge i guess
*shrugs* I guess that’s the way the game differentiates itself though. If you could play as a team it’d make perfect sense to have someone building stuff while others defend them. I like the idea of building cover or defensive buildings, or offensive buildings to give yourself a strategic advantage.
I’m not really sure we need another shooter that’s *just* a shooter. But by the same token, I’d also hate to see *every* shooting game turn into a fortnite/pubg clone. I think there needs to be differences between them.
Back to the article, great idea added a noob friendly mode to get an introduction to the game. I hate multiplayer games that have no “learning mode” and drop you straight into the deep end. Nothing puts me off more than going into a new game and being annihilated 20-0 when I don’t know the map or the weapon spawns, or gameplay mechanics and I’m up against people who’ve been playing for months/years.