Fortnite continues to push boundaries with arrival of 'Chapter 4'

Without a doubt, Epic Games has molded Fortnite into a gaming industry monolith, the likes of which is rivaled only by fellow industry juggernauts such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. For better or worse, it is (and perhaps always will be) a standard bearer in the industry, especially in regard to free-to-play live service gaming. Nearly everyone wants to be Fortnite. Even legendary studio Naughty Dog hired the guy who designed Fornite’s battle pass, so that they could put him to work on their upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game.

We’ve reached a point now, however, where Fortnite’s resonance in gaming goes beyond monetization models and battle passes, and extends to pushing forward the technological boundaries of the games themselves. Enter Fortnite Chapter 4, announced over the weekend as the latest and greatest iteration of the tried-and-true formula. Only this time, there are some new bells and whistles under the hood, thanks to developer Epic Games also being the proprietor of the Unreal Engine, which makes Fortnite Epic’s personal technology playground, and rightfully so. In fact, it was the first game to be developed on Unreal Engine 5, after moving over from the previous iteration as of December 2021.

Now, alongside Chapter 4 Season 1 comes Unreal Engine 5.1, which introduces new hardware features available for the first time in any game. Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution have all joined the party on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. That all probably means nothing to you, so here is the elevator pitch for each new feature: Nanite allows every stone, flower, and blade of grass to be modeled on-screen, Lumen introduces realistic lighting behaviors such as colors bouncing off of objects and on to your character, Virtual Shadow Maps means that every modeled detail will cast a shadow – even individual leafs, and finally Temporal Super Resolution is an upgrade over Temporal Anti-Aliasing and allows high-quality visuals at high framerates. That might all still be gibberish, so if you’re more of a visual person, have a look at some screenshots:

Image Credit: Epic Games

I have to admit that for a long time, I was a Fortnite hater. Only after the addition of a “No Build Mode” to the game did I finally give it a fair shake, and I must say – I get it. I get it very much, indeed. I played a handful of matches at that time and finished in the top-5 each match. Not to mention, it was a blast to play. I enjoyed myself so much that I went on the podcast I co-host and proclaimed myself a Fortnite believer, after two years of scoffing week-in and week-out on the show. And so here I go once again, re-downloading one of the most popular games on Earth to my PS5, preparing to jump out of that flying school bus once more.