Fortnite is a massively popular battle royale game that has been downloaded over 125 million times since its launch in 2017 and earns $250 million per month for the North Carolina-based developer, Epic Games. Since its initial release, the game has morphed into an ecosystem with multiple games and experiences created by Epic and thousands of other creators. In addition to the main game mode, there is a range of activities including music, esports, and education.

The most well-known game is the main Fortnite Battle Royale mode, which pits up to 100 players against one another in a fight to be the last player standing. The game starts with players, weaponless, jumping off a flying bus (known as a “Battle Bus”) and landing on the map, where they then begin to fight for resources, weapons and territory. Players can acquire a wide variety of weaponry, such as guns, pickaxes, bows and arrows, grenade launchers, knives, swords, boomerangs, and more. Weapons can be found by simply spawning them on the ground (referred to in the Fortnite community as “floor loot”), opening chests and supply drops, or looting them from other eliminated players.

In addition to weapons, the game allows players to build fortifications of limited durabilities, allowing them to traverse terrain, protect themselves from enemy fire, or slow down the progression of other players. These structures can be built using available materials, which include wood, stone and metal. Players can also gain experience by completing missions in the game, granting them hero characters, weapon and trap schematics, survivors, and more.

While the core game is free to play, there are several paid tiers of content available for purchase. Purchasing V-Bucks, the in-game currency, allows players to unlock new items and weapons for their character, such as pickaxes and weapons skins. These can be purchased using real-world money or earned through gameplay. Some purchases, such as the Battle Pass and Loot Llama, also grant players rewards based on their level in the pass or how much they spend on the item.

Beyond the main game modes, Fortnite includes a sandbox mode called Creative, where players are free to spawn any element from the Battle Royale game mode on an island of their own creation and create mini-games and experiences, such as race tracks and platforming challenges. In Creative, players can use the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) to edit worlds and create a wide array of experiences.

The Fortnite ecosystem also includes educational games and content, such as the physics-based game Blockers, which allows users to design their own 3D models by combining and stacking blocks to make buildings. It also includes a collection of educational songs and video lessons taught by famous musicians, such as Rihanna, Drake, and the Backstreet Boys. Parents can control their children’s access to these experiences by setting ESRB-assigned age and content restrictions, with the ability to set restrictions on a per-app basis. However, this should not be used as a substitute for parenting, as it is important to speak with children about what is appropriate amounts of gameplay and how to manage their gaming time.