Fortnite has been the king of the battle royale genre pretty much since its release in 2017. It took that crown from PUBG, though now there’s a hot new property in town that might yet unseat Epic Games’ hit. I’m talking of course about Apex Legends, which in just over two weeks has amassed a huge amount of players, received praise from all sectors of the market and feels like it’s set to revitalize a slightly tired genre.
But Epic Games aren’t just going to let Apex Legends swoop in and steal all the thunder. In fact, they may even be looking very closely at it, examining the tweaks it makes to the genre and incorporating them into Fortnite.
The devs recently did a Reddit AMA in which players could quiz them as to what’s coming in season 8, with possibly the most notable feature under consideration being respawning. Now, respawning in a battle royale game doesn’t mean quite what it does in a regular shooter. The entire point of a battle royale is that you get one life per match and must end up as the last player standing.
However, both Fortnite and Apex Legends include features in which a teammate can bring a downed player back into the game. In Fortnite, there’s a short window in which you can revive a teammate, but miss it and they’re done for the round. Apex Legends, meanwhile, is a little more flexible, allowing other players to collect downed teammate’s banners and resurrect them at a respawn point. It’s a system that underlines the importance of teamwork in the game, where two (or three) guns is always better than one.
Anyways, here was Epic’s response to a question about them bringing that mechanic into Fortnite:
“We’ve been considering this mechanic for a while and have been exploring it. Want to make sure we give it the time it needs and fully understand its impact on the game as a whole. Look for further updates during Season 8.”
Sounds pretty positive to me, to the point where they’re apparently testing it. I think it sounds like a great way to mix things up, too, though if they screw it up they run the risk of unbalancing the game. As such, they’ll definitely need to be careful.
What do you think, though? Would you like to see Apex Legends‘ respawning mechanic in Fortnite? Let us know in the comments section down below.