Fortnite Game Modes We Want Back

If you've ever stepped foot into the world of Fortnite: Battle Royale, you're probably aware of the many limited-time modes the game has rolled out since it launched back in 2017. There are some that are slight variants of the main game. There are also some that do away with everything you might expect from a game called Fortnite: Battle Royale and play by a whole new set of rules.

The one thing most of these games modes have had in common though? For the most part, they've been highly entertaining.

As much as Epic Games likes to update Fortnite and keep things new and exciting, we still have a problem. All of the limited-time modes that we've enjoyed so much have been just that: extremely limited. Perhaps Epic wants to keep experimenting and trying out different ideas with Fortnite's player base. But we think that there's a whole lot of love out there for what's already come and gone. And we'd really like to see some of those past modes make a return.

These are the Fortnite game modes we want back. If you're listening, Epic ... please?

There's something really cool about using Fortnite's hang-gliders — especially if you're lucky enough to land one that's extremely rare. They take on all kinds of looks, from traditional-looking gliders to spooky locomotives to viking ships. But there's a rub, one that none of Fortnite's other cosmetics seem to suffer from: the gliders aren't seen very often.

That's what made the Soaring 50's mode inside Fortnite so great. It tweaked the game's rules so that, instead of only being able to use your glider at the start of a match, you could pull it out anytime you dropped from a high elevation. This meant that you could whip out that Battle Pass glider you worked so hard to get a lot more often. And it also gave you a faster way to move around the map, especially handy if you had a storm on your tail.

We're of the opinion that glider re-deploy should be on at all times. Since Epic doesn't appear to feel the same way, Soaring 50's is the closest the game will get to making that dream a reality. Let's hope it makes a return sooner rather than later.

There's nothing better than a Fortnite mode that drastically alters the way everyone plays the game. Right from the jump, most dilly dally around whatever spot they land in, looting for weapons and gathering resources. The storm takes such a long time to move that there isn't a real sense of urgency. This can cause some games to drag out — especially in larger team-based modes.

But not in Steady Storm.

Steady Storm makes one change to the game, but it's a big one. Instead of incremental periods of shrinking, the storm is constantly closing in on you. As soon as you drop onto the field of battle, the playable space is getting smaller by the second. And that means you have to move. If you're right on the storm's edge, there is no time to fuss with those gold attic chests. You won't have the opportunity to chop down a forest's worth of trees to collect wood. Instead, you'll have to get trucking toward the center safe zone immediately.

We love the way Steady Storm drives players toward combat more quickly. And we love how that, in turn, shortens each match. Please bring it back, Epic.

For the most part, Fortnite is all about jumping in and having a good time. Sure, some like to shoot for that Victory Royale. Some are even serious enough to take part in tournament play. But you can look at some of Fortnite's in-game challenges and come to the conclusion that many are simply out to obtain cool cosmetic loot.

That's what makes Fortnite's Solid Gold mode so intriguing.

Solid Gold is quite possibly the closest Fortnite ever gets to a serious and competitive multiplayer shooter. To start, it is a squad game, with four players to a team. And it insists on parity with weapon drops by ensuring that every single weapon on the map is legendary. If you lose a gunfight in Solid Gold, it isn't because someone lucked out and found a gold-tier weapon that outclassed your uncommon garbage. It is because they got the best of you fairly.

Solid Gold puts far less emphasis on looting for good weapons and, instead, puts teamwork and communication at the center. It was a welcome addition when it first hit, and it's a mode we'd love to see come around not just once more, but often.

Remember how we talked about Fortnite being a game that's primarily focused on fun? It may be no more evident than in some of the game's weird limited-time modes, which take the traditional battle royale formula and throw it out the window entirely. And this next mode might take the cake in the weird department, for sure.

It's called Disco Domination. And if the image didn't give it away, it's all about getting down.

Some of Fortnite's most popular cosmetic items are emotes, which are animations of dances and other movements. Most like to use emotes at the start of a match, or at the end upon winning. But Disco Domination is a mode that asks players to dance in order to win — and that is such a cool idea.

Each disco dance floor serves as a sort of control point. By dancing on the floor, players can elevate a disco ball and, eventually, capture that point. And all the while, a "dance bar" for your team fills up on screen. The first team to have their dance bar reach 100% wins the match. Which means that it's quite conceivable that a team could win without doing much shooting at all.

We loved the way Disco Domination flipped the script the first time it appeared. How about some more of it?

Imagine for a moment that you're playing a multiplayer shooter like Halo. In most Halo game modes, the game objective is pretty clear: kill the members of the opposing team as many times as possible, and bear in mind that you can always respawn should you die.

Now apply that same objective to Fortnite. That is the Team Rumble mode in a nutshell.

Team Rumble really bucked Fortnite's status quo. It's not at all about being the last player standing, as most traditional battle royale game types are. Instead, it's like a big game of Halo, where two teams of 20 go to battle and try to rack up 100 total eliminations. It's nice for beginners, who might feel like they can finally come out of hiding with guns blazing. And it also adds a lot more action to the matches, as a not-so-great encounter with an opponent won't get you kicked back to the lobby.

We appreciated Fortnite's willingness to toss an old-school shooter mode into Fortnite, a game that became popular by doing what those games weren't doing. It would be great to see more experimentation — and more Team Rumble — in the future.

Fortnite's 50 vs 50 modes are a whole lot of fun. They're also great for beginning players, as the games tend to play out in a more predictable manner. But sometimes, they can be a little too predictable. Two teams eventually make their way toward the center of the map and, quite often, entrench themselves on either side of the line that runs through it.

In Teams of 33, though, that can't happen.

Teams of 33 forces three teams (with 33 players each) to meet in that same middle. But after that, it's not quite as simple as shooting across the center line toward enemies on the other side. There are two flanks to worry about, and the knowledge that the center of the map where all teams meet will be a zone of absolute chaos. It adds a new twist to the game and forces players to keep their heads on even more of a swivel than before, and that makes for a really good time.

In a game that can support 100 players on the map, it's nice to see some variants on how Fortnite reaches that number. Teams of 33 is probably the best yet, and we hope it makes a return soon.

Many Fortnite enthusiasts seem unaware that it actually started out as a survival game. It wasn't a very good one at launch, mind you, and there's a chance the game might not even be around today if not for the success of Battle Royale. Still, it's nice to see Fortnite's more popular mode pay homage to the entire reason the franchise exists in the first place.

And in Team Terror, Fortnite: Battle Royale does just that.

Team Terror is a shrunk-down version of Battle Royale that pits two 32-player teams against each other, with one major addition — spawn points that generate monsters are spread all over the map. Players can loot the old fashioned way, or kill monsters in order to pick up weapons and ammo. And Gold monsters — the big, beefy type — can drop Legendary items, though they're much harder to kill than smaller monsters.

We really enjoyed Team Terror and the way it kept the battle royale formula intact while introducing AI enemies to the mix. If Fortnite can do more to embed its survival roots into its multiplayer shooter in the future, we wouldn't be opposed to it. But for now, we'd be happy enough getting Team Terror back.

Team Rumble isn't the only tried-and-true shooter mode that Fortnite has introduced. There's also another that made its way into the game for a brief period of time, albeit with some uniquely Fortnite changes.

That mode was called Food Fight. And before you get too excited: no, it did not involve slinging actual food at your opponents.

Instead, Food Fight mode was all about protecting your base. And because Fortnite has some weird obsession with fast food, the bases in question were restaurants, and the objectives that required protecting inside them were either a giant burger or a giant tomato. The opposing team of 12 would attempt to infiltrate your base in order to destroy your giant food item. And your team of 12 would have to defend said food item while also trying to destroy the opposing team's food in the other base.

Food Fight had some real promise, but unfortunately, it didn't really stick around long enough for everyone to jump in and spend enough time with it. If Epic wants to make some tweaks to Food Fight, that's fine. But we'd really like to see the mode pop up again sometime soon — and not disappear so quickly this time.

We're not exactly breaking news by stating that Fortnite: Battle Royale is a hit. You can look at the meteoric rise of Ninja in 2018, or the fact that professional athletes mimic dances from the game, and understand where Fortnite sits in popular culture. But a real shift occurred in May 2018 when a special limited-time mode came along. And one could argue that it changed how people saw the game forever.

We're talking, of course, about Infinity Gauntlet.

Infinity Gauntlet marked the first time that Fortnite crossed over with another property — in this case, Avengers: Infinity War — and showed off how valuable it could be on the marketing side of things. And it didn't hurt that the game mode itself was fun, too. It worked much like a typical game of Fortnite, but somewhere on the map, Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet lied in wait. Whoever claimed it became Thanos himself. Whoever didn't? Well, let's just say that winning got a little bit harder.

Because Infinity Gauntlet was a promotional mode tied to the release of a major blockbuster film, we might never see it again. But we sincerely hope that won't be the case. In fact, if we could snap our fingers and bring it back right now, we would.

Here's a dirty little secret about Fortnite: the team behind Epic Games likes to keep the game as fresh as possible. And sometimes — to borrow from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg — they move fast and break things. New weapons are removed for being too powerful. And things like traps are taken out after players find ways to exploit them.

But there's a mode where all of these misfit toys can be played with once more. A mode where Epic says, "Go wild." That mode is Unvaulted.

As you can probably tell by the name, Unvaulted resurrects everything Epic removed in the past. The overpowered guns and items come back out of the vault, so to speak, and land right back on the map for players to use as they see fit. That semi-auto sniper rifle that seemed a little too good? The bouncer traps that drove players absolutely mad? In Unvaulted, they're back, giving veterans a way to relive Fortnite's crazier days and newcomers a chance to see what the big fuss was about.

Unvaulted is a nice way to shake things up, and for that reason, we hope Epic decides to put it on the schedule for the near-term.

Sometimes shooters are at their most fun when everyone agrees to do away with the pistols and machine guns and, instead, play with nothing but explosive weapons. Remember those rocket-launchers-only GoldenEye matches? They were such a blast. Believe it or not, there's a Fortnite mode that attempts to do the same thing. And it might actually be more fun.

It's called High Explosives. And it's likely the most appropriately named mode Fortnite has ever introduced.

You can forget about seeing those crutch shotguns everyone carries around in the traditional modes. You won't be stuck with your weak-sauce pistol trying to put a shot on some player with a high-powered rifle. In High Explosives, only the weapons that go boom are allowed to drop. So you can expect a lot of rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades, and other things that help you blow up your enemies.

And honestly, what's more fun than blowing up an enemy?

High Explosives didn't hang around very long when it first popped up — probably for good reason. But it was awfully hectic and awfully entertaining to play. If Epic Games can make some room for High Explosives to make a return someday, we'd be totally fine with that.

One of the best things about Fortnite is how the studio behind it, Epic Games, isn't afraid to throw caution to the wind and try new things. The Battle Royale side of Fortnite has been almost as much a Petri dish for new game types as it's been a battle royale game, and that means that there have been occasions where Epic's really stepped out and taken some changes.

Case in point: the game's limited-time mode called The Getaway.

In a typical battle royale game, a large sum of players make it their mission to loot and survive with the hopes of being the last person alive. The Getaway did away with that premise, instead asking squads of four to locate four safes spread around the map. Each safe contained a jewel, and once a team was able to obtain one of those jewels, they needed to make their way to a getaway van and escape.

Each game could end with up to four teams winning — a pretty big departure for the battle royale formula. It would be great to see more modes step away from the norm like The Getaway did. And it would also be great to have The Getaway get back sometime soon.