Pro gamer drops a twenty bomb victory royale on all the haters. Photo courtesy of reporter Trey Walter.

  Fortnite is dead.

  That is what everyone was saying three years ago. There was even a parody of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” titled “Fortnite’s Kinda Dying.” But students here at San Luis Obispo High School are still playing Fortnite’s twenty-sixth season to this day, over six years after its release.

Is the popular battle royale still relevant today, or is it time to open a new chapter?

  “There are better games out there,” said freshman Logan Yazzie.

  Could this mean that Fortnite is caught in the storm, and can’t reach the level of play that newer games are reaching? Or maybe it just isn’t for some.

  Fortnite recently dropped an update enhancing the graphics of the game, making it look better than some gaming industry AAA titles in 2023, so it must be something else driving people to believe the game is dead.

  “Fortnite is still the best battle royale. Graphics are way better than they used to be,” said freshman Isaac Burgess.   

  So this must mean that people are getting bored of the gameplay. After all, it has been a lengthy twenty-six seasons of the same game.

  But almost every season brings game changing mechanics to Fortnite and sometimes even switches the whole game entirely, like with the “Zero Build” update, where it brings Fortnite to a more simple battle royale with the building feature removed entirely. This helps beginners still enjoy playing without having to learn something very different from most other games.

  Being a free-to-play game definitely helps with this game’s player base. Most games cost upwards of sixty dollars these days, and the only thing you can pay for in Fortnite is cosmetics that are completely optional.

  Now, we know that Fortnite has a large player base, but just how large is it? One might be surprised to hear that it is more than fifteen million players per day.

  Fortnite is definitely still a popular game today among students at SLOHS and around the world for a multitude of reasons. Almost everyone has played at least once. 

  Let’s hop on Fortnite, Tigers!

  Sources: genius.com, wepc.com, economictimes.com