The development phase of Fortnite: Save the World is a long phase that started in 2011 and ended in mid-2017. This entire article is taken from this link.
2011-2012 (Pre-Alpha)[]
See also: Project Fortress In 2011-2012, the idea of Fortnite was conceptualized. The game started out as "fortress game " The build was created during the early months of its creation, meaning screenshots and videos were never released to the public.[1] This build was originally created in Unreal Engine 3 and has not leaked, meaning this version is lost media. [2]
You can see two different videos of this build (one longer one shorter) here and here.
Here is some information about this version of the game:
Limbo[]
The design document states that periodically, non-player-created buildings in the world would be enveloped in a mist creature storm. When this happens, all players in the building are killed, and when the storm finally passes, the building will be replaced with a brand new building (thus keeping a steady stream of new loot opportunities introduced into the map)
However, if the players place their power generator in the building before it's consumed by the storm, then all the players inside the building instead get transported to Limbo, the mist creature's home world.
Because it's night time when this happens, Limbo is mostly empty of monster creatures so the players can explore and mine unique resources from Limbo. There is a giant obelisk at the center of Limbo which is the gateway between their world and our world. The player's ultimate goal in the game is to destroy or "plug up" the obelisk.
Players are eventually pulled out of Limbo and kicked back into the real world. If they happen to be inside another "sucked into Limbo" human building, then they ride that building back into the real world and end up in a completely different map in the human world. In this way, Limbo serves as a sort of hub allowing players to transfer between different human world maps.
Original Name[]
In the "FortressGame" build the anonymous user found an early version of the Fortnite VGA trailer from November 2011 (around a month before it was revealed at the VGA's and uploaded to YouTube) You can watch the video of the early version of the trailer here.
Sometime between the "FortressGame" build and this build, the name changed from Fortnite into Fornight. There are also multiple graphics in the game called "Fortnight". The music used into this build was compiled into a Spotify playlist but that has since been taken down. You can find them on this YouTube channel along with lots of other footage.
| Project Fortress versions (Not real build names) | Differences | Engine version | Build date
(yyyy/mm/dd) |
Staus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Internal gamejam (UE3 Base Building Demo)"[3] | The beginning builds, there is not much information other than the only two screenshots of this time period. It also seems that there is no name yet. (sec. 2:32[4]). | 2011 | LOST | |
| "Billy Bramer build 1"[5] | This build presented at GDC 2013 is our first look at the vision they had for the game. The entire game seems to be different, with the hud, characters, graphics, building and upgrading systems all eventually being reworked. | Unknown | LOST | |
| "Billy Bramer build 2"[6] | In this build the quickbar was introduced. (bottom middle) | Unknown | LOST | |
| "Billy Bramer build 3"[7] | In this build you can see that the minimap is not finished, and the icons in the quickbar for building are different. | Unknown | LOST | |
| "Anonymous user build 1"[8] | We got to know much more about this era of the game thanks to this build, apparently, this build has several things that were not yet finished. This build has the same editing systems as today, but still has the upgrading "hammer minigame" (best shown off in this footage but seems to be its final iteration). | 2012-06-03 (Probably) | LOST | |
| "Early Prototype Trailer"[9] | This build is probably the most finished of all of the FortressGame era, we think so since the bars in the upper right corner do work (the health bar of the generator seems to work in this build). | 2012 | LOST | |
| "Anonymous user build 2" | This build is just a test using the UE4 engine and has less stuff than previous versions, it's just a port to test UE4. | 2012 | LOST |
Due to the paucity of information on this era, this is the best we could do to try to figure out which build was before or after another.
2013-2014 (Closed Tests)[]
Not much is known about the Closed Tests era, it is only known that it was a transition stage between the original concept of the game (Project Fortress) to what Save the World was in the Online Tests, in addition to having some closed tests at certain conferences or private events called "Storm Chasers", the guests were able to try for a few hours some demo versions so to speak, those who were able to try were also able to take screenshots and some have been revealed over the years.
| Version name | Engine version | Build date
(yyyy/mm/dd) |
Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ver-1858850-1185495905d443c6a876d08798ba2cf9-fsfoec | Unknown
(UE4) |
2013 | LOST |
| Ver-1880695-1185495905d443c6a876d08798ba2cf9-fsfoec | Unknown
(UE4) |
2013 | LOST |
| "Storm Chasers event"[10] | Unknown
(UE4) |
2014 | LOST |
| "The boop build" (Storm Chaser event) | Unknown
(UE4) |
2015-05-21 | LOST |
2014 - 2017 (Online Tests)[]
See also: Online Tests
These versions contain a lot of information since they have leaked.
The Online Test versions are the earliest publicly released builds of Fortnite. In order to participate in one, you had to receive an invitation or redeem a code, however either way they were completely free.
The players who participated in these versions received exclusive banners within the game. In addition, many players have confirmed that they had direct contact with the developers to give them feedback.
The original Fortnite PvP mode:[]
In these versions (Online Tests) there was no "Battle Royale" mode, so everything was about the original game mode, which was later renamed to "Save the World." In these versions, a PvP mode was being developed, and some tests were done with players, the name of this mode is "Weather The Storm".
Currently, only OT6.5 has been fully found, along with a portion of OT10, included in the files for OT6.5.
The difficulty of finding an Online Test:[]
The vast majority of users who played in the Online Tests have not saved images, videos or files of the versions due to an at the time (now ended) NDA, making it very difficult to find someone who still has Online Test files. People have tried to contact users with the role "Alpha Explorers" on the official Fortnite Discord server, but all those contacted have already said that they no longer have any files of any Online Test.
There is little knowledge of these versions and little information on the internet, as players were required to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to participate in the Online Tests.
To find an Online Test the best way to do it would be to spread the word that these versions are lost, so we will attract more people interested in contributing to the search or find some old alpha player who has not been contacted yet.
Online Tests era builds:[]
There are way too many builds to list here. You can find them here on LMW.
In case you want to see the websites of the alpha era of the game but Wayback Machine is taking a long time to load, you can see them in this Google Drive that includes the release notes of the Online Tests and important websites, including the Online Test 11 release notes! (These were not saved in the Wayback Machine but we were able to recreate the release notes!):
The Online Test 11.0.3.1[]
Some time ago we found files related to the Online Tests era of the game on the physical discs sold in 2017 (Mostly they are from PS4 and Xbox One but there are some from Windows), we managed to obtain the discs from the three mentioned platforms but we did not we know which version they are (we only know that they are the same version on all three platforms) and since the creation date of the files is "06/07/2017" (dd/mm/yyyy) we assume that they are from Online Test 11.0.3.1, the duration of this Online Test was from 02/06/2017 (dd/mm/yyyy) to 22/06/2017 (dd/mm/yyyy). We have put the version as "probably found" since we are not 100% sure. The files from the Windows version (found on a very hard-to-find PC physical version which seems to only be sold in EU countries and more specifically Germany) are compressed and can't seem to be decompressed. We managed to get a decent amount of it decompressed but it was simply too much data to bruteforce.
2017 (Early Access)[]
This era is somewhat short and mostly with bug fixes from the game, the duration time is short since "Battle Royale" began to become popular which made the team slow down on Save the World-related updates.
Post Release era builds[]
2017-2019 (Post Battle Royale)[]
Start of Battle Royale mode era, most builds from this era are saved and all builds after Chapter 1 are saved.
(CU= Content Update, general bug fixes means for both modes).
Post Battle Royale era builds[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GSfjeYVpkQ
- ↑ https://lostmediawiki.com/Fortnite_(partially_found_unreleased/lost_builds_of_the_massively_multiplayer_online_game;_2011-present)
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2rS_ltmJ0Q&t=1102s
- ↑ https://gdcvault.com/play/1024936/Developing-the-Art-of-Fortnite
- ↑ https://youtu.be/eDMN58CKT5Y&t=303s
- ↑ https://youtu.be/x2rS_ltmJ0Q?t=1528
- ↑ https://youtu.be/x2rS_ltmJ0Q?t=1554
- ↑ https://youtu.be/dPB-41-ceWY
- ↑ https://youtu.be/4d84PFrjq9s?t=106
- ↑ https://imgur.com/a/4s1kTIH