It is no secret that video games are immensely popular in today’s world. With the rapid growth of technology the world has seen over the past few years, new games have popped up day after day. However, no such non-mobile game has garnered such an intense following than up-and-coming developer Epic Games’ battle royale smash hit Fortnite. The premise of the game is simple:

“Each player lands on a different spot on the map, and they try to collect as many resources and weapons available. As the game goes on, the map gets smaller, forcing players into action. Bases can be built with ease, allowing for more strategy than most games,” Sophomore Jack Lewis said.

Fortnite’s rise to the top of the gaming world, as unprecedented as it has been, makes sense. The concept of the battle royale game style is simple yet relatively new.

“100 people spawn [into the game] and find guns to kill each other,” Junior Max Lane said.

The game’s cartoonish graphics appeal to a wide age range. Combine that with the game’s availability to play for free on the three major gaming platforms– Personal Computer, Xbox One, and Playstation 4– and Fortnite essentially becomes impossible to avoid. Fortnite does offer a “save the world from zombies” style mode, but players must pay $39.99 to access it

“The most popular game mode is Battle Royale, where you can play solo, or in squads and duos,” Lewis said.

Squads, arguably the most popular of the three variations, allows up to four players to team up with each other. Duos, as the name suggests, is basically squads but with only two players per team, and solos has no teams- every player for themselves.

Once a player or their team joins a game, they are placed in the “Battle Bus,” which will fly them over the island on which the game takes place. Players pick a location on the map that is reasonably close to the route that the bus flies, a route which is different every game, and, when they are close enough, jump out of the bus and skydive down to their location. Depending on the player’s preferences, they may choose to land at some of the more popular locations among players, risking their own safety in hopes of racking up lots of kills early in the game. There are a few common landing spots in the game that most players are aware of.

“[They are] Tilted Towers, Retail Row, Pleasant Park, and Salty Springs,” Lane said.

Tilted Towers in particular is a hotbed for players,

“Due to the powerful weapons that can be found there,” Lewis said.

Despite the obvious advantages of some landing spots, the map does have a few hidden gems. The recently-added settlement of Haunted Hills usually does not see too many players, and often boasts a surplus of high-quality weapons.

“[Some more underrated spots are] Flush Factory, Snobby Shores, and Moisty Mire,” Lane said.

“[Another underrated spot] is the motel, with only a few players landing there and some very good weapons scattered around,” Lewis said.

The time after the initial mad dash for weapons, shields, medical items and building materials is when the best players flourish. Some players might think that the simplest way to win a game is by hiding from other players until the game is over, but this is not the case. These players tend to settle for mediocre supplies, which will not help them enough when the time comes to use them. Instead, skilled players put themselves in spots where they will have the opportunity to eliminate large amounts of players, whether they camp out near the edge of the play zone to finish off players stumbling inside the zone on low health, move towards the middle of the play zone so they can hunker down without having to worry about moving to stay within it, or by hiding out near the supply drops that carry high-quality weapons or medical items for players to find.

However, a game of Fortnite is truly won when ten players remain. At this point, players find cover, whether by camping out in nearby buildings or constructing forts with the materials they have gathered. The most effective weapons for destroying these buildings are rocket launchers and grenade launchers. Any player that finds one of these, at any point in the game, would be wise to hold onto them. Eventually, the last remaining player or squad will emerge– whether it be from the inside of a majestic fort or from behind an unassuming bush– and their screen will flash the most coveted phrase a Fortnite player knows: “Victory Royale!”