Fortnite: Save The World Free-To-Play Launch Delayed

When we're talking Fortnite, we're usually talking about the game's wildly successful battle royale mode. Today, however, we're talking about its predecessor, which has picked up the title Save the World in the time since battle royale launched. Epic has issued a "State of Development" update for Save the World, talking about various updates to the mode and announcing that its planned free-to-play roll out has been delayed.

For the uninitiated, let's backtrack quickly and cover Epic's original plan. Epic launched Fortnite: Save the World in early access a few months before battle royale launched last year. Though Epic charges for the game while it's in early access, the plan was to roll Save the World into a free-to-play launch at some point this year.

Now, however, plans have changed. In that State of Development post, Epic says that it's "working on a broad set of features, reworks, and backend system scaling we believe are needed to go free-to-play," and that increased workload means a longer wait. Epic says that Fortnite: Save the World will now go free-to-play at some point in 2019.

A more specific date isn't available yet, which suggests that we have a while to wait. Still, some of the improvements Epic is making to Save the World were included in this State of Development post, including a revamped front-end UI and a new hero system that allows for six hero slots rather than the standard three.

As an apology for the delay, Epic is offering all Save the World players who log in during the Fortnitemares event free Brainiac Jonesy and Skull Ranger Ramirez heroes. It's also hosting a 50% off sale on all versions of Save the World, so if you were waiting on taking the plunge because you thought Save the World would launch in free-to-play at some point this year, this might be a good time to dive in. Hopefully it isn't too long until Epic gives Save the World an actual release date, so stay tuned.