Why Fortnite's Most Unexpected Predecessor is... Second Life

I was recently observing that Fortnite, the world's biggest multiplayer game, had just evolved into the world's most popular virtual world. As it turns out, Fortnite has always been a successor to virtual worlds -- specifically, to Second Life.

Yes: Cory Ondrejka, who co-founded SL with Philip Rosedale as Linden Lab's first CTO, just posted this recollection to his Facebook, tying together many games and game developer together: 

The connected web of game development is pretty awesome. In early 2001, we’d test the prototype of Second Life - then still called Linden World -- by battling each other in a hybrid FPS/building game. [See video below]

Soon after, we expanded scripting, building, and avatars came along and the modern version of Second Life was born, focused on letting people create. We had some pretty fun chats with Epic Games' Tim  Sweeney about blending engine, tools, and game into one experience right as Unreal Engine was exploring the same space from a different direction.

A decade later, Epic Games' Mark Rein let me play a prototype of Fortnite that blended ideas from various Epic Games, SL, and Minecraft into a really different game. Playerunknown: Battlegrounds came along and converted Arma 3 grognard-heaven into something totally new: Battle Royale.Soon after, Epic released a new gameplay mode for Fortnite and the world showed up to play.

Now Fortnite has opened up building and islands to enable players to build using their incredible tools. I wouldn’t have thought to build into a virtual world from a non-persistent game — though John Carmack, who’s often smarter than the rest of us, was musing on that idea back in the day — so it’s friggen cool to see them exploring this corner of design space.

And some years after leaving Linden Lab, Cory went on to join Facebook, where he helped drive the company's acquisition of Oculus, where Carmack is now CTO.  All this might be surprising to Fortnite players who assume Second Life to be a quirky Sims-type social game, let alone to current Second Life users, who tend to be more in the social gamer vein. But in its first few years (2003-2005), Second Life had a few major free fire locations (called the Outlands), which were all about Fortnite-type gameplay, combining building and combat. (Which even led to a in-game culture war.)  

Anyway, take a look at the Linden World product demo Cory mentioned, shot in 2001:

Wonder when Linden Lab's current management succumbs to the inevitable and deploys a Battle Royale experience in Second Life so the circle can be complete.

Cory's comments reprinted with permission!

Comments

[Amanda]

There have always been combat simulations in SL. I've been involved in sailing ship battles in SL for nearly a decade. It's a mix of skill and strategy that few purpose built games mimic. And of course it has a strong social aspect.

[JohnC]

Well, as much as I love and will always be an SL addict, I have to say, that if ever there were going to be a company capable of bringing Ready Player One into existence, it would be Epic. No other company comes close when it comes to support and dedication to its player base. I got Unreal, the game, the day before it was released way back in the late 1990's. I got it only because of the editor that came free with it. For me it beat the hell out of the Quake editor that looked like an architects nightmare. Epic were always on the side of the artist, the creator, and they still are. As much as I would hate it to my core, if one day some creation of Epic killed of SL, then I would at least feel that in my heart, the far superior, truly player aligned company won.