How did Fortnite become so popular?

1. Free to Play: Why is Fortnite quickly becoming more popular than PUBG, the grandfather of Battle Royale games these days?
Because unlike PUBG, Fortnite doesn’t cost $30.
And when you consider the fact that many players in Fortnite’s audience are young (i.e. ages 13–17), this is a big deal.

2. Battle Royale games are all the rage right now: For those who are not aware, “battle royale” games are those that focus on the exciting aspect of lumping 100 or so live players in a confined map. 

Loot, in the forms of weapons, explosives, and medicine, can be found throughout the map. 
Meanwhile, there is a “Storm,” which will gradually shrink on a designated area of the map, forcing players to get closer and closer together to force fights as time goes on.
Your job is to stay out of the Storm and find as much good loot as possible, while killing everyone in the way, Hunger Games-style.
The last player standing is the winner.

3. Fun and Unique Gameplay: Minecraft+PUBG=FORTNITE

Not only is Fortnite a game that taps into the popular battle royale trend, but they’ve combined elements of shooter games (PUBG, Call of Duty, H1Z1) with building games (Minecraft, Terraria).

Before Fortnite, shooter games mainly revolved around a duck-and-cover approach, and this can get stale.

Because Fortnite allows players to gather materials (by destroying trees for wood, stone for bricks, and cars/buildings for metal) to build structures, you have more creative ways to retaliate and overcome your enemies.

Someone is trying to snipe you? Build a wall in front of you as cover.

Want to build a fort/base in the middle of a map? You may do so!

Want to build stairs up to a mountain? You do you.

4. Extremely youth-friendly: The visuals and graphics of Fortnite are clean, fun, and simple.The gameplay is intuitive and simple, and is player-friendly for both the highly competitive players and laidback casual players who just want to play with friends.The map is colorful, and even changes from day to night so that people are killing each other under the sun and moon.A parent could play Fortnite with their child, and both would have fun.

5. Wildly active social media scene: 

Fortnite is typically in the top 3 most viewed AND streamed games on Twitcheveryday. The top streamers easily garner tens and thousands of viewers for hours.

Some of the top names of Fortnite you may recognize are: 

1. Ninja 

2. TSM Myth
3. Summit1g
4. Shroud (PUBG player)
5. Dr. Disrespect (The Doc - also a PUBG player)
6. CDNthe3rd

The Youtube scene is insane active as well. Videos of blooper reels, highlight reels, montage compilations, and clips of top plays and players are constantly uploaded everyday and reel in millions of views.Not to mention the meme culture of the game and competitive rivalry between some of the top players are of pretty high caliber, which absorbs a lot of attention from the player-base.

6. The Fortnite developers care about the players: They are reliably responsive, casually interactive, and constantly rake in feedback from their players.

They care about what the players have to say and are always open to taking in suggestions/ideas for how to improve the game.

Just like in business, when you care about what the users have to say and make yourself available to them, they will be your champions.

7. A variety Goofy/Exhilarating ways to kill your enemies: Content you wouldn’t expect in a battle royale shooter game.

For example, you can do some of the following funky things:

# Place floor/ceiling traps to maim your enemies:

# Throw Boogie Bombs to forcibly make your enemies dance for several seconds:

# Rocket-riding (yes, you can actually “ride” the rockets from a rocket launcher):

# Hide as a bush to ambush your enemies:

Overall, Fortnite is a very fun, free-to-play, and beginner-friendly batte royale game. It’s also absurdly easy to pick up and goof off with your friends/family.