Epic’s New IP was Inspired by Minecraft
By Yannick LeJacq | December 13, 2011 | News | No comments | Share
What do Gears of War, a game where you guide enormous, barrel-chested and impossibly acrobatic slabs of flesh along gritty war-torn streets, sawing through equally massive enemies while belting guttural catch-phrases like “eat shit and die!” have in common with Minecraft, an expansive, player guided experience that seems to take the majority of its artistic cues from Lego sets?
Turns out, more than you might think.
Epic Games announced its new and decidedly cartoony IP Fortnite this past weekend at the VGA ceremonies. But standing alongside other studios releasing new and often predictable developments in their queue of ultraviolent and hypermasculine franchises (a standard, it should be added, Epic helped created and popularize with Unreal and Gears of War), their game took inspiration from the decidedly indie hit Minecraft from the Swedish developer Mojang.
Epic Games’ lead designer Lee Perry confirmed the speculation on Twitter later, stating that “Minecraft was an inspiration for sure.”
Like Minecraft, the game focuses on players constructing different objects and buildings in a more open-ended nature than previous Epic titles. “Minecraft lets you build anything, [but] we are focusing on constructing ‘buildings’ specifically,” Perry continued, adding that at the moment, Epic had “no information to give with regards to Fortnite’s platform or timeframe.”
Cliff Bleszinski, Epic’s design director and the brain behind Gears of War, took it one step further, saying that there won’t be any “dudebros” in Fortnite – the massive slabs of flesh previously mentioned. While Gears of War has often been (lovingly) lampooned for just how ridiculously over the top it can be, this shift in direction for the company is still a bold move given the success of Epic’s past projects. Gears of War 3 has sold over 3 million copies since it was released in September, and the series in its entirety has grossed over $1 billion in in its relatively short lifetime on the Xbox 360.
Still, it is important not to speculate too much about Epic’s future directions. Epic certainly has more ideas spinning around the office than Fortnite alone with the end of their famed Gears trilogy still fresh on everyone’s mind, so it’s not clear if the company will ultimately stray that far from its original formula for success (again, the giant slabs of flesh). Just last week when discussing Fortnite, Epic’s president still said that he “can’t wait” for the company “to get back to something like Gears in the future, because it’s sort of our bread and butter, and [the developers are] going to be more energized for it.”
