Former Epic Games director of game production Rod Fergusson revealed at E3 2019 that he wanted to cancel Fortnite while he was still at the company.
Rod Fergusson is currently the head of the Gears of War franchise and The Coalition studio. He is also a producer, senior producer or executive producer of not only the first installments of the Gears of War series, but also , two games Infinity Blade and Bulletstorm. He worked at Epic Games even when Fortnite was just getting started.
Rod Fergusson admitted to the Game Informer portal that he wanted to cancel Fortnite and even tried to do it when he was still working at Epic Games. “Before I left, I tried to cancel Fortnite. This game would not pass my scale of what needs to be continued [developed]. Yes, when I left, I said: “She’s yours!”,” he said.
Needless to say, the gaming industry that exists today would be completely different without Fortnite. The battle royale phenomenon was already ignited by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but Fortnite is fueling multiple Epic Games programs, from its focus on crossplay to the Epic Games Store. Even Unreal Dev Grants wouldn't be expanded into Epic MegaGrants with $100 million in funding for small developers.
Let us remember that in the process of creating Fortnite, the authors encountered great difficulties. At one point, it was even believed that the project was stuck in production hell. The PvE mode, later called Save the World, launched in July 2017 to moderate success. However, with the addition of a free battle royale mode, the game's popularity quickly grew to unimaginable levels. Now Fortnite is famous all over the globe, and the project’s audience numbers over 250 million people (as of March 2019).
Source: 3dnews.ru