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Fortnite has had an interesting relationship with shotgun design to say the least, but the game has had a lingering problem with shotguns since its beginning. Because of the importance of building, shotguns have ended up a must-include weapon in any player’s inventory, and there doesn’t seem to be a way around that.
Fortnite Weapon Design
Fortnite’s unique blend of rapid construction and battle royale gameplay has brought in hundreds of millions of players all throughout the world playing on anything from a phone, Nintendo Switch, PS4, or even top end $4,000 PC gaming rig. Available on almost any modern machine, Fortnite appeals to people from all walks of life.
Its gameplay is fresh and controls well regardless of what you play it on, and yet with all the emphasis on building there is one interesting design challenge that would not otherwise be present.
Want to know what items might feature in the shop tomorrow? Check out our predictions for tomorrow's Fortnite Item Shop
Designing Weapons for Shooters
There are no other shooters that have to work around the same challenges that Fortnite has when it comes to weapon design. In fact, most shooters, either single player or multiplayer, end up with a very similar categorization of weapons in its design; assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, submachine gun, sniper rifle. These five weapons can be found in games as old as Quake and Doom or as new as, well, Fortnite. Even games as different as something set in the real World War II, the fantasy worlds found in Destiny 2, or futuristic worlds found in Halo; all ultimately end up with one or more examples for each category.
They present a time tested level of variety and counterplay, and allow for level design where the optimal weapon changes rapidly and reflects each individual player’s playstyle.
Fortnite’s Design Challenge
Fortnite follows the 5 weapon model pretty closely, but giving players the ability to build quickly limits some of those weapons more than others.
Building in Fortnite is robust and fun, it’s honestly the biggest reason to play the game, but it also limits what weapons can be good and how they can be used. When good cover is only ever a few clicks away, weapons which capitalize on finding your opponents out in the open become significantly worse. Running through a field under sniper or rifle fire would be risky in most games, in Fortnite it’s only as risky as you decide to make it. An assault rifle is only as good as how many materials you can force your opponent to waste, rather than a tool for eliminating opponents at medium distance.
The outright king of this design is the shotgun for sure. When you can place a wall, edit a hole to shoot through, fire off a single blast, and return the wall to its default state in under a fraction of a second there’s very little that can compete.
The Current Shotgun Landscape of Fortnite Season 3
Currently there are two shotguns for players to choose from, the more consistent all-around Tactical Shotgun, and the high-risk high-reward Charge Shotgun, with the leaked Dragon Shotgun expected to arrive sometime in the future. In the current meta, Shotguns are weaker without the ability to headshot someone for 200+ damage without having to first charge up for three seconds. In theory this should allow for SMGs and other guns to fill that void, but in practice it simply makes you have to carry a second weapon to finish off a player you just shot with your shotgun. Refusing to play with a shotgun is to willfully handicap yourself.
Does it need to be changed? Maybe not, Fortnite’s gameplay certainly benefits from having high-speed building combined with big hitting shots, but at the very least it is something worth considering.
The Battle Bus is heading into Fortnite! Check out the final Fortnite item shop today!
