Epic Games insists LEGO Fortnite & Rocket Racing are a success despite lower player counts
The future of Fortnite is here, and while many will always think of it as a battle royale shooter, Epic Games is keen to make the title much more.
With the launch of the GTA RP-esque Brick Life mode, Epic Games is taking Fortnite in another different direction. Coming shortly after the introduction of Fortnite OG and the first-person Fortnite Ballistic, Brick Life is a “social roleplay experience” that arrives alongside LEGO Fortnite being rebranded as LEGO Fortnite Odyssey.
Epic Games explains the importance of new modes
Speaking to The Verge, Devin Winterbottom, Epic’s executive vice president of game development, explained how he wants to change expectations of what Fortnite is.
“The worst outcome for us is that everything looks like battle royale,” said Winterbottom. “That’s not what we want to do.”
This has been led by the launch of LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival in December 2023. LEGO Fortnite has already embraced smaller experimental game modes like LEGO Raft Survival and LEGO Obby Fun.
Winterbottom’s hopes are echoed by LEGO Head of Games Remi Marcelli, who used the example of Cat Adventure Island that tasked players with caring for cats on an island. Marcelli said the cozy mode was “the furthest away from battle royale that we could think of,” adding, “We had a decent playerbase at launch, but it was sort of lost in an environment where nobody was opening Fortnite to play that specific type of game.”
A refocused strategy attempts to appeal to a ‘broader’ audience while giving them something exciting enough to visit LEGO Fortnite Odyssey. A new hub area hopes to make experiences like the aforementioned Cat Island easier to find.
With Psyonix’s Rocket Racing struggling in terms of player count, Winterbottom is aware that the numbers might not look the best thanks to Battle Royale still leading the charge: “Odyssey can look smaller compared to some of the other stuff that’s in the ecosystem, but it’s actually a successful game. It has a lot of players.”
He asks players to look at Odyssey as a standalone product outside of the main Fortnite ecosystem, saying, “The numbers that it generates would be considered very successful.” Concluding that “success comes in a lot of different sizes,” he suggests that big things can be found in the pint-sized package of LEGO: “Not everything needs to be a monolithic mega game. That’s actually bad in our opinion.”
With Winterbottom thinking in decades instead of years, the likes of LEGO Fortnite Odyssey are hopefully the foundation of something much bigger. Epic and LEGO have spent 12 months refining their strategy, and with a lucrative $1.5 investment in Disney, the Fortnite brand is set to keep evolving.