It's a truth universally acknowledged that gamers love to moan about Fortnite. To be honest, they love to moan about pretty much anything that's gotten hugely popular, but Fortnite seems to be a special case. The Epic-developed battle royale has been so popular for so long, that it's really picked up its fair share of detractors.
It also doesn't help, in their eyes, that Fortnite is a bright and colourful game for kids. A lot of self-described "hardcore" gamers seem to have a real issue with that, as if they haven't built their entire identity around a medium that only exists because it was originally made exclusively for small children.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because developed Infinity Ward has said it's going to be taking a leaf out of Fortnite's book as it moves forward with its own battle royale, Call Of Duty: Warzone. A lot of people are more than likely simply going to look at the headline of this article and get unreasonably angry, but it all sounds really rather interesting.
Infinity Ward's Narrative Director Taylor Kurosaki, who worked on the very well-received campaign for 2019's Modern Warfare, recently spoke to VentureBeat about the future of Warzone. He mentioned that he wants to keep the narrative going, in the same way that Fortnite and Apex Legends have been tying in story elements that are there for those who are interested, but barely visible to those who don't really care.
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We've already seen this narrative in action as part of Warzone's recently-released Season 3. Alex, one of the main characters from Modern Warfare who we all presumed dead, has returned to the battle royale as a playable Operator. Kurosaki said we can expect this kind of thing to continue.
"We've talked a lot in the past about whether games like Fortnite have a narrative," he said. "I would say yes, absolutely. I'd say Warzone does as well. But for me, it's in a genre and a tone that I greatly prefer."
VentureBeat also touched on Fortnite's massive in-game events and asked Kurosaki if Infinity Ward would adopt a similar strategy for Warzone. For those that don't know, the map in Fortnite was constantly growing and evolving, and each season would end with in-game teasers that ultimately led to massive changes to the map at the start of the new season.
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"That's exactly the kind of thing that we're working on, that we have planned," Kurosaki said. "Again, it's all going to fit into this macro that we've established in Modern Warfare, and that we've continued into Warzone. If you know who the players are in Modern Warfare, it'll all make sense, and it'll all feel appropriate to the universe."
Don't expect Verdansk to suddenly get gobbled up a massive black hole one day then... but keep an eye out for secrets scattered across the map that might just point to the future of Warzone.
Featured Image Credit: Epic/ActivisionTopics: Fortnite, Modern Warfare, Epic, Infinity Ward, Warzone, Call of Duty, Battle Royale, Activision