Fortnite hasn’t always been the IP-stuffed battle royale behemoth with millions of players that it is today. In fact, the name Fortnite used to actually make sense – back when the game started as a co-operative survival experience where players worked together to build a fort and survive the nite… er, night, against hordes of zombies.
Fortnite first released all the way back in 2017 as a paid, early access title with plans to eventually move to a free-to-play model. But the rampant success of the Fortnite Battle Royale mode that came a few months later caused Epic to change course, badging the original flavour as Fortnite: Save the World and letting it live as part of the growing Fortnite platform in pay-to-play form.
Now, it’s all coming back full circle as Save the World finally becomes a free-to-play Fortnite mode offering as of April 16, 2026. The mode will be available exclusively to players on PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Switch 2 (sorry original Switch owners and mobile players).
Guess those V-Bucks price increases have to go towards something, right?
Epic is running a pre-registration promo for Save the World, offering a number of bonus cosmetic items once the community reaches certain thresholds of player pre-registration numbers, including the Snowstrike Hero with unique in-game perks once the count hits 1 million players:
If you’d like to be a part of that effort, you can pre-register right here.
As for current owners and players of Save the World, they’ll receive bonus Superchargers, Vouchers, and Gold on April 16. And Founders will continue earning V-Bucks through Daily Quests, Mission Alerts, Storm Shield Defense Missions, and existing Challenges. You can find out specifics on those right here.