Generally speaking, Epic’s a company that likes to put its best foot forward. When it debuts a new game or engine, everything’s polished to a gloriously gritty sheen – even if a look behind the curtain tells an entirely different tale. So Fortnite‘s PAX presentation was – for many reasons – a strong reminder that the crayola-colored survivor is Different. It began, for instance, with Tanya Jessen, Cliff Bleszinski, and co running us through very early Unreal Engine 3 prototypes of Fortnite’s combat – complete with desolate checker box backgrounds and near-superheroic levels of Aliasing-O-Vision. But that’s the point: Epic considers its construction-centric opus a “living project,” and it wants fans in on the ground floor.

(more…)