Epic Games has admitted that Mojang's indie virtual world Minecraftin part inspired Fortnite, the game the company unveiled at the Spike VGA on Saturday.
Little was revealed at the award ceremony. The game has two phases - exploring and fort-building during the day, and fending off an advancing horde of undead by night - with Epic's design director Cliff Bleszinski saying the studio had "decided to switch things up a bit and do something different and fun." In a series of tweets since the announcement, lead designer Lee Perry has revealed a few more details.
Perry admits that "Minecraft was an inspiration for sure," but stresses that Fortnite is no straight lift from Mojang's game. "I see lots of questions asking if Fortnite is freeform construction," he writes. "It is. It's not scripted or just boarding up existing structures.
"Minecraft lets you build anything, we are focusing on constructing buildings specifically."
Perry won't be drawn on target platforms or release plans, and is vague when asked who is heading up development of the game. "Fortnite has been a crazy organic old-school war room of passionate devs," he writes. "It's like an indie group set up shop in the corner of the building." Fortnite was just one of several new games to be announced at Spike VGA; see our round-up story for more.