>> Hello, my friends and
welcome back to PlayStation
live from E3.
It has been a good day so
far.
I'm joined by Meredith once
again, and I'm joined by
Darren from epic games.
Hello, sir.
>> Hey, thanks for having me
out here.
>> It's our pleasure.
And we're going to talk about
Fortnite.
Because it's a game I'm amped
about.
We just spoke downstairs and
basically Fortnite was
designed for me.
This is what I say it's one of
my dream games.
It designs a lot of different
genres in different ways, so
talk about how that perfect
storm came to be.
>> Yeah.  So we call Fortnite
our cooperative game where you
craft, scavenge, and
ultimately build giant forts
to defend hoards of features,
and you can do it in a
generated world.
>> Every word in there is
custom built.  Like, measuring
my sleeves.
He's, like, this looks like
the right kind of game.
And you know what?
It has been -- you guys have
been developing it for a
while, and you guys have
probably learned some lessons
along the way.
What evolved it and brought it
to where it is today?
>> Let's see.
I think the biggest thing that
has changed through with our
community is we used to have
world ownership be held by a
single player, so that would
be -- if you spent 20 hours in
a world and then I came and
visited you, I would lose all
of my stuff.
And everyone's, like --
Minecraft works that way.
There's actually a lot of
games that have that world
ownership.
But, man, every time we're,
like, we want to make co-op,
and it was kind of a little
bit rough when you would join
stuff and lose all of your
equipment and all the stuff
you earned.
So we went back to the drawing
board a little
>> That's what game design is
all about.
Finding what works and what
doesn't.
>> Yeah. 
>> And you guys have this
amazing loot system, which I
want to talk about.
I want to talk about the fort
building.
But really at the core, it's
about repelling these huge
wave of monsters; right?  Can
you tell people a little bit
how that's designed?
What the moment to moment is
like for action?
>> Yeah.  So the moment to
moment, you start by
.
>> And we have a huge array of
different mission types.
For rescuing people,
exploration, or we have build
missions where it focuses
around actually building, make
sense; right?  And then we
have war, where you have to
gather resources, build a
base, and then you throw a
switch, and that summons the
storm, which that's where all
the creatures come from.
And
And the creatures are crazy.
There's artillery, pro pain
tanks.
They carry them.
Try try to get to the base.
You have to destroy them
beforehand.
We dump the tools in the hands
of the player and let them play
the way they want and solve the
mission.
>> Unlike previous versions,
it's a little less defensive and
you're going offensive.
>> We started from the core
fortress defense.
But people want toed clear
wanted to clear out the monster
encampment.
>> The monster design, because
they have a very unique look.
>> Yeah.
We went through a couple of
iterations of that, and we
started out with a very grim and
gritty concept many years back.
And it was like, they were
awesome and amazing -- at least
to my eye.
But some of the artists were
like, no, we really want to push
ourselves out of this box and do
stylization.
That's where this came to be.
And the creature design now is
autobit more fun, vibrant..
>> But the flip side is that 
they are fun and a little coor
n toy at times, and at the 
flip side, that stylization 
and color goes into the 
characters and heroes as well,
which is a huge part of 
Fortnite that is a huge part 
of and up my alley. 
>> The hero development is 
super cool, we evolved out of 
our current-day survivors, the
people thereat you that you 
rescue, the inhabitants of 
Fortnite.  And once upon a 
time, you could play as those 
guys and we wanted them to 
feel more heroic, you have 
four classes in the game, the 
Ninja, the double jumping and 
the constructor which allows 
us to amplify building and 
allows you to -- they reflect 
damage or auto repair walls or
the outlander allows you to 
see treasure through walls on 
their explorer, or the 
commando OS.  If you like to 
explore, that's your class.  
And then our soldier, which is
sort of the run and gun class 
for people that like to shoot 
and throw grenades.  When we 
have the concepts, we want 
them to be bigger and tougher 
and they are special and 
unique, that's where the 
iteration of the hero designs 
and where you -- 
>> And the monsters attack 
your forts and destroy them, 
is there a way to rebuiltd 
parts or do you start again? 
>> We have two aspects of the 
game, we have the mercenaries 
where you execute a mission 
with other players, you get a 
mission together, you go into 
the procedurally generated 
world and you shoot a laser 
into the storm and dispel it, 
or you go into the home base 
and that's the area where you 
can build and you can bring 
resources back and grow the 
fortress over time.  The 
bigger the area you hold, the 
more the map unlocks.  We have
the best of both wormlds and 
you can invite your friends to
play, too. 
>> We will talk about the 
glowing blueprint that you 
hold, that's my favorite 
thing, and we are seeing in 
the footage, we were seeing in
that footage the ability for 
you to build, construct, and 
kind of customize on the fly. 
>> Yeah. 
>> Which is interesting to me,
because that's a design 
challenge, to be able to, hey,
I need to be fighting and 
quickly re-build and repair my
fort.  How did the designers 
and UI folks tackle that 
challenge? KB
>> That's something that we 
wanted to land relatively 
early, and the design pattern 
that you saw allows players to
edit that 3 by 3 squares and 
create different pieces so 
they can be like, if you want 
to build a door, you remove 
two pieces, you want to remove
a window, you build one.  And 
that simplicity allows players
to master building and then 
the same thing is true when 
you want to repair a hole in 
the fort, it is easy to hold a
pattern to stamp it down and 
you can make things quite 
quickly in the world.  It is 
something we asked about earl 
aon, we wanted the building to
look good and one of the ways 
you do that, you make it easy 
for people to do that. 
>> Can you do it when you are 
playing traps and building 
mazes to stop people from 
coming into your world? 
>> Yes, when we look at 
advanced players, they roll 
out and they will lay down all
the flooring and then they 
will switch and lay down the 
fences to shoot over them and 
a teammate will come over and 
they will lay the floor traps,
everything from spike traps, 
electrical traps, and push 
traps that you can fling up at
you, and are expert players, 
they are able to fling 
creatures into the air and hit
them with another trap and 
knock them off cliff.  So the 
tools bend to what TWHAI do 
and the procedural worlds 
allow them to play around with
that. 
>> That is so fun KBNCHLSH . 
>> Before, we have to ask 
about the loot.  You 
emphasized that in the trailer
that came recently.  
>> Yeah, so we have a loot 
system that is pretty deep, it
is RPG, it is for those people
the
that are like the Diablo 
style, from common to 
legendary, that's what we have
and you are able to earn 
schematics, and that is what 
you are able to build in the 
world.  You level them up, 
they have different rarity, 
and then you carry those with 
you throughout the game.  And 
one of the cool things, we 
think for co-op, allows you to
craft the guns and you give 
them to other players.  If you
have a huge library of 
schematics and your buddy is 
over there and you are just 
starting, it is okay, you can 
give them a gun and they can 
run and shoot it.  We wanted 
to incorporate that level of 
cooperative into the game. 
>> Everything that I want, and
I think that you guys made 
annou
announcements today about 
PlayStation goodies, maybe you
could -- if you don't mind 
going into it -- 
>> Yeah, so we, for 
PlayStation, we are doing a 
set of heroes that are all in,
sort of, dressed in their 
PlayStation blues.  So you can
see them, they look pretty 
cool, they let you rep your 
PlayStation heroes, basically.
It is DH-- they are awesome 
looking. 
>> Well, you know what else I 
think is awesome? You and this
game, I appreciate you coming 
and telling us about it, 
Meredith, thank you for 
joining us again.  Ladies and 
gentlemen, was Fortnite, we 
have more about what darren 
was referring to on 
PlayStation blogs, check out 
PlayStation/blogs BLAlater 
tonight, more from E3, do not 
go anywhere, stay with us.  
