Around 2017-2018, there used to be a huge circlejerk online about how Fortnite was the dumbest thing ever, to the point where “Fortnite bad, Minecraft good” was part of the infamous Keanu Chungus 100 meme. Why did it get so much hate, and why did it stop?
For me, a lot of it came down to the fact that Epic Games more or less dropped Unreal Tournament 4 to focus on what appeared to be a low effort adaptation of PUBG slapped over another game, and in doing so basically ripped the heart out of deathmatch arena shooters, and all we got out of it was a game that didn’t excel at any specific thing beyond appeal to children.
At this point I’m still sour about UT, but Fortnite has gotten enough updating to its technology and graphics that I’m less angry about it pretty much becoming Unreal Engine’s flagship game and more angry about what it represents. The game has always been fine.