Blackout vs Fortnite: Which Battle Royale Game is Better?
Map
When replaying a game constantly such as Fortnite or Blackout, the map is a huge deal. The map needs to be interesting, large, and feel like every location matters.
Fortnite’s map has changed more than several times in just a year, making it one of the most dynamic maps we’ve ever seen. With rocket launches, giant purple cubes, and dimensional rifts, Fortnite has certainly kept players engaged with their map and all that surrounds it. Fortnite’s map checks all three of the elements I mentioned above.
It has a myriad of interesting places ranging from old western towns to high end golf courses. The map bolsters 18 named locations for players to explore as well as unnamed locations like a giant castle, a viking town, and a sports recreation center. Each of these locations matter because they all provide loot, cover, and materials for players to gather at beginning of each match.
Some places on the map are more popular than others (Tilted Towers I see you), but really it’s all about going where you or your squad want to go. Players never feel pigeon holed into dropping into “the best spot.” Each new season of Fortnite brings changes to the map in interesting ways which further change up locations for players to go check out. This season, there is a giant floating island that is changing location every couple of days.
Blackout’s map features fan-favorite areas from the previous Black Ops installments. Areas like Asylum, Estates, and Nuketown Island are all re-imagined versions for players to explore. This idea is central to Blackout as it is an amalgamation of all things Black Ops. This is great because even though these are familiar areas, they still feel fresh.
As mentioned earlier, zombies are an important part of the map as players never really know what spots will have zombies in them. This helps add a layer of variety to the map each game. While it doesn’t drastically change anything about the map, it is a nice touch.
When looking at the three areas Blackout hits the mark somewhat. The map has interesting areas, but a lot of it consists of trees or large stretches of land with nothing happening. Players will find themselves traversing through a lot of hills and open fields going from each named location. This can be stressful as it leaves players vulnerable to fire from enemies, but outside of that factor it is relatively uninteresting.
The map certainly is large, even with a truck or ATV traveling across the map will still take time. Players don’t feel stacked on top of each other because there is still plenty of space for everyone to drop across the map. Even though it is large, like I said earlier a lot of it is just stretches of uninteresting land. What about the named locations though? Well, those are certainly interesting and offer plenty of loot and cover for players. Some areas even have parts you can interact with, like doors to secret tunnels or opening garage doors.
Every named location in Blackout feels like it matters. Those are the best areas to drop and easily offer the most loot for you to score. It really boils down to the unnamed areas, which offer little to nothing of value. Sometimes you’ll find a good weapon, but at the cost of being stuck in the middle of nowhere being forced to travel a great distance towards the circle.
Winner: Fortnite takes this category because it nails all three criteria mentioned above. Everything on that map is engaging and feels like it belongs. With constant changes to the single map over the course of this past year, Fortnite has continued to have total map control in the battle royale genre.
