Fortnite is a ‘technical powerhouse’

When Epic Games announced their new title Fortnite at the VGA's last year many were probably quick to write it off as a shallow, almost childish game – at least from a technical standpoint.  The game's more catoon-like theme was quite a change from Epic's usual Gears of War title filled with rich 3D graphics.  It's a look that Epic's design director, Cliff Bleszinski described as "stylized in kind of a Disney, Pixar look."

That's not a bad comparison, and if you ask Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, he'll agree that Fortnite's graphics are "not that bad".  Speaking to VentureBeat Sweeney pointed out Fortnite has "vivid colors and there are real-time shadows everywhere."

Despite it not being as obvious as it is in Gears of War, Sweeney defended Fortnite as a "technical powerhouse".

One of those technical features include building construction and destruction.  Speaking to G4's Xplay, Cliff Bleszinski highlighted Fortnite's lego-like construction.

"When it comes to construction in Fortnite you're not micro-building so much as building actual planks on the walls.  You're actually building pre-fabbed sections of walls as well as traps and things like that in order to build up your structure.  Once you actually get used to this lego-like structure, anything is possible."

As you can imagine, an unscripted building game where virtually "anything can be destroyed" actually does require quite a bit of technical power, as Sweeney originally stated.