- [Narrator] When any game gets big enough,
there are people who want a piece
of the money making pie.
Fortnite has probably become one of the biggest games
on the market over the past year,
all because of it's awesome Battle Royale mode.
But with success comes the ripoff vultures
and Fortnite Battle Royale knows that
better than anything else.
Hey guys, Arcade Cloud here
and today we're taking a closer look
at Fortnite's biggest ripoff.
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A lot of people try to say that Fortnite Battle Royale
started its life as a ripoff itself.
I mean, even the creator of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
tried to say that Fortnite was ripping off his idea
and that Epic Games were abusing
the unique relationship with him
and their shared use of the same engine to nab his ideas.
Then everyone laughed a bit
and told PlayerUnknown to grow up
because Battle Royale games have been around for years.
I mean, just look at Minecraft's Hunger Games.
You can't call that a ripoff, can he?
Anyway, popular games get ripped off all the time
and Fortnite Battle Royale is no different.
But there is one mobile game that stands out
above all the others and that is
the now legendary FortCraft.
FortCraft is a pretty shameless
Fortnite Battle Royale ripoff
developed and pedaled by the infamous NetEase.
Think you've heard of them before?
Well you probably have.
This Chinese company was founded back in 1997
and since then, has been pioneering internet development
of internet services within the country.
These days, they develop and operate
some of China's most popular video games on PC and mobile.
Oh, and they also rip off huge western games.
In fact, they rip off other games so hard
that PUBG Corp started to notice
and they weren't too happy about it.
So not happy that the two companies
are now in a huge legal battle over the game's rights
which has probably been made even more frantic now
that PUBG is officially out on mobile devices.
It's pretty surprising that in the
middle of all these legal disputes with PUBG Corp,
NetEase would just go ahead and churn out
a clone of Fortnite Battle Royale,
but that's exactly what they've done.
FortCraft was released at almost exactly the same time
as the Beta for the mobile version of FortNite was.
Although their PUBG ripoffs are a little bit different,
this Fortnite clone is incredibly similar,
from the assets to the crafting,
right down to the weapons and pick ups.
You could probably put FortCraft
in front of a Fortnite fan and it would
take them a couple of seconds to realize
that it was a totally different game.
That's how similar this blatant ripoff is to the original.
In FortCraft, you don't drop out of
the classic Battle Bus from Fortnite Battle Royale.
Instead you drop out of a giant airship taxi,
which I have to say, does actually
have a pretty creative design.
Another difference is the actual map,
which feels bigger than, and if you ask me,
a little bit more interesting than
the original Fortnite's.
I mean, sure, it doesn't exactly look as pretty
as the triple A title, but it's definitely bigger
and just a little bit more creative.
There's different islands and
different environments for you to explore
which surprisingly, gives it the edge
over Fortnite's rolling hills.
It's supposedly modeled after theme parks
which gives them a lot of creative freedom
to get a little crazy with the environment.
But that's basically where the lack of similarities
end because everything else in this game
feels like it was basically ripped straight
out of Fortnite.
100 people drop from the battle taxi
and drop to the ground below armed only
with their trusty hammers.
From here, it's a desperate fight to the finish
with players destroying buildings and trees
with their hammers to gain materials to build
forts with, and picking up materials and traps
along the way to take out the enemies.
Almost all of the weapons in FortCraft feel like
direct copies from Fortnite, liked the scoped
assault rifle and the RPG.
They look basically the same on the ground
as they do in Fortnite and preform in basically
the same exact way.
Another really obvious similarity is just the overall
style of the two games.
The graphics style used by NetEase and FortCraft
mimics the fresh, colorful, and cartoony look
of Fortnite pretty much perfectly.
The character models, weapon models, UI elements
and buildings look like they're basically assets
that had been ripped straight out
of Fornite Battle Royale, and they've been
downgraded a little bit so they could work better on mobile.
FortCraft is actually made to work on models of phones
older than the phones that Fortnite Battle Royale
Mobile can work on, so the lacking
graphical fidelity isn't exactly surprising.
The building in FortCraft is actually where this game
shines.
I mean, the whole reason Fortnite Battle Royale
is so cool is because of the buildings.
So for any ripoff to even stand a chance
with competing with the original they had to get
things perfect when it comes to building
and I kinda think they got the building done
even better than the original game has done on mobile.
To keep a level playing field between mobile, PC,
and console, the building mechanics in Fortnite Battle
Royale work pretty much the exact same way
in ever version.
But FortCraft doesn't have to deal with other
PC and console versions, so they don't have to worry
about balancing for those versions of the game.
In Fortnite Battle Royale on mobile you still have
to build your forts wall by wall,
ramp by ramp, and with the fiddly controls
of mobile that can be a drag sometimes.
In FortCraft you literally have a one-tap fort building
button that will build a pre-ade structure
for you in an instant, granted you have enough materials
for it.
You get to construct a building in the pre-game lobby
and then save the whole thing, which you can then
instantly assemble at any point in the game.
It's something that only a mobile version of Fortnite,
or in this case FortCraft would need,
and the fact that NetEase have managed to do it
before Epic Games is pretty surprising.
As I already mentioned, FortCraft has a lot of the same
weapons as Fortnite Battle Royale.
They all look pretty much identical as they do
in that game.
Weapons like the scoped rifle, the burst assault rifle,
and the RPG look like they've been ported right over,
and they feel exactly the same as they do
in the official game as well.
But FortressCraft hasn't stayed idle because
they've also added some of their own cool, unique weapons.
The most obvious one to talk about is the flamethrower.
The weapon isn't exactly all that good to be honest.
It only does a small amount of damage on hit
and also deals a little bit of damage over time,
but it takes a little while for all that damage to
stack up into a kill, and usually by that point
the enemy has probably just killed you anyway.
But what it shows is that FortCraft may actually
be willing to grow and evolve past the bounds
of Fortnite Battle Royale, meaning it could actually
end up being quite a bit of a competitor
in the world of mobile gaming.
Now obviously the worst thing about Fortnite Battle Royale
on mobile is the severely limited phones
that you play it on.
At the moment, you can only play it on iOS devices,
and even then you can only actually play the game
on the iPhone SE, the iPhone 6s, the iPhone 7,
the iPhone 8, X, iPad Air 2, the iPad 2017,
and the iPad Pro.
It isn't available for earlier iOS devices
and isn't even available on any Android devices yet.
FortCraft does much better, stating then when the game
releases fully, it will be available on a whole
load of old iPhones and tablets, and a whole load
of Android phones too.
I mean, most Android phones are pretty much exactly
the same in terms of software, the only difference is
the hardware it has, so.
In fact when they ran the beta of the game
it was able to run on both Apple and Android
devices, which is already a pretty big
one-up over Fortnite Battle Royale's
mobile experience, at least thus far.
I'm sure it's going to come to Android eventually.
Of course NetEase's FortCraft is a blatant
and shameless ripoff of Epic Game's
Fortnite Battle Royale.
It shares the same aesthetics and graphics,
most of the same weapons, a very similar
mining and building system, and a giant flying
battle taxi so you can get down into the map
and fight your way to the top against 100
other enemies.
But it also shows quite a bit of promise, too.
It has a few new weapons like the flamethrower
and makes building easier on those really
awkward to use small touch screens.
It's innovations like this that will keep
Epic Games on their toes and ready to develop
more and more updates for the mobile version.
And hey, I guess if you have an older mobile
and just can't play Fortnite Battle Royale,
you could always just play FortCraft instead.
And there you have it, our deep dive into
Fortnite's biggest ripoff.
Do you agree?
Did we miss something?
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Take care and game on.