Feature Request: Fortnite Spawn Island + Creative Preview
Fortnite has exploded over the past few years, taking the world by storm, if you will. Epic has done an excellent job of changing the story over the past few Seasons, providing variety to players who probably would have stuck around anyway. I’ve found myself as an unlikely player over the past few months — it’s a great product that, as with all products, could benefit from a few experiments.
The First Problem
Spawn Island hasn’t changed much, season over season— and while I do not have access to the data, I imagine it’s the point in which players are the least engaged with the game. As soon as I see I’m waiting for others to join the game, I put down my Switch (yes, I’m one of those players) and pick up my phone, likely scrolling through TikTok (unfortunately, one of those players too).
The Second Problem
Fortnite has other modes you can play besides Battle Royale. I am a habitual player, though, and do not do much exploring on my own. A few friends have coaxed me into Creative Modes and LTMs, but I tend to find myself coming back to BR. It’s a good game — sue me! Still, if I had to guess, Epic would probably prefer I engage with other parts of the Fornite platform. If I get bored of one creative mode, there are countless others for me to choose from. If, however, I get bored of BR and am not invested in any other gameplay options, that’s probably it for me.
A few questions rise up when trying to solve this problem:
- When are players most open to playing creative mode in any given session? What if those players are not playing with a group of their friends?
- At what point in the player’s typical “journey” through a gaming session does someone have the lowest friction level to trying a creative mode? How long does that moment last?
- What creative modes are the easiest to bring to small numbers of players? Are there any creative modes that are good for solo players? Which ones have the highest rate of continued play? Do any of these creative modes have a typical play duration that is similar to that of the aforementioned low-friction-level period?
Two Birds, baby
Fortnite should use Spawn Island as a stage for their other modes of gameplay — specifically Creative. There are numerous reasons why this might be a bad idea, and we’ll talk about those. But first, humor me a bit — let’s discuss why, when executed properly, this solution has a big upside.
My problems are listed above as:
- I am disengaged on Spawn Island
- I am unlikely to try other modes of gameplay on my own
Spawn Island is a great chance for me to become engaged with a new mode of gameplay because the stakes are low (worst case I remain disengaged) and the upside is high (maybe I’ll try out creative mode).
From a user experience perspective, instead of spawning onto Spawn Island, I’d spawn into a creative mode game — likely selected by a PM or nominated by the public. The duration of time spent on “spawn island” would be the same, but instead of running around, I’d have a chance to explore a new game mode.
Great. That’s how it works. Let’s tear it apart.
“Good luck teaching players a new game, having them play it, and want to play again in the 60 seconds they are on spawn island…”
Hmm, that’s a good point. 1 minute is not a lot of time to learn and play a game. The creative modes featured on Spawn Island would need to be:
- easy to learn
- quick to play
- work with as few players as 1 and as many players as 100
“Great, now our players are mad that you made them leave creative mode for BR…”
Another good point. What if players become so engaged with the creative mode they are served that they leave their BR round for this game mode instead. Appending to our earlier list, the creative modes on Spawn Island would also need to be:
- mini-games OR creative mode previews that players will find entertaining, but won’t care about leaving
- Accessible at the end of a round of BR (perhaps via a button above the “return to lobby” action)
“Most players aren’t disengaged on Spawn Island…”
Yikes! I’m in the minority. Still, if you can engage players in a different game mode, isn’t that okay?
“We can’t think of a game that is quick to learn, easy to play, is player-count agnostic, and won’t make people mad if they leave halfway through.”
You definitely can, but thanks for humoring me! Google already has a game like that:
Assuming a player spends an average of 1 minute on Spawn Island before the battle bus launches, players have very little time to engage with a new game mode. Still, a lot of creative modes take no time to learn, have an incredible amount of replay-ability, and also work with however many players are present (i.e. there is solo play).
The above game, though a bit of a meme at this point, is also great for one other reason. Though players may strive to hit different high scores in a Spawn Island dinosaur runner, the spontaneous ending of a game is not all that painful for a player. One might get upset that their personal best dinosaur run was cut off by the battle bus’s departure, but as Chrome has proven, it’s almost certain that players will not get so upset that they turn off their Wifi to continue playing.
A few rapid-fire points that might make this work:
- if players have any level of buy-in to this mini-game, they might be more likely to go back to spawn island to play it (that is, play another round of BR)
- Asynchronous competition between friends becomes incredibly feasible. Having a high score on this week’s Spawn Island game could become a small talking point of one’s BR experience
- Any given player’s focus remains on Fortnite and not the numerous other platforms that they may access on one of their other devices.
- Creators of different maps may not have a huge incentive to build only mini-games, but if they could build interactive previews, a player could become more interested in engaging with the full version on Creative Mode.
A Brief Conclusion
To wrap up, I believe that Battle Royale’s Spawn Island could serve the Fortnite team as a discovery space for different Creative Modes. It’s not a perfect solution, but could vastly improve player engagement without disengaging players from their existing habits.
