Fortnite: Battle Royale is an international game, which means it’s available to play in so many different countries, including China. So of course, there are a lot of differences between the traditional and Chinese version of Fortnite. Nothing too major, but some certainly interesting changes nonetheless can be found in the Chinese Fortnite servers, ranging from altered cosmetics, free cosmetics and some rather interesting gameplay changes that some might find very interesting. So let’s get into it. Credit to Pro Game Guides for some of the images.
Cosmetics
Recruits
The recruits/defaults in Chinese Fortnite are somewhat different. One recruit has Evelyn’s model. (Evelyn, for reference, is a cosmetic model that’s used for Power Chord and Shadow Ops.) Rio was also a recruit in Chinese Fortnite back in Chapter 1. Of course, now in Chapter 2, we have Rio as a recruit model but we had a Rio recruit earlier way back when. We also had a Renegade recruit, and while we had him back in Chapter 1, now he’s a lot more swole and experienced.
Exclusive And Free Cosmetics
For logging into Fortnite China (Which is a lot harder than it sounds), you will be able to earn free rewards, like Battle Passes and other Item Shop cosmetics.
Also also, you can get two back bling: Insignia and Penguin. The Insignia represents a bold, black and gold shield which represents WeGame, the Chinese company that created the Chinese servers. The Penguin back bling is based on the Tencent QQ logo. These back bling are rewards for collecting 9 medals. Medals is the currency this website uses, earning them by playing games.
Pre-registering for the launch we get you the Modern glider, and getting 3 friends to pre-register too will get you an exclusive contrail called Embers.
You may be familiar with the first one, because it appeared at the Main Stage in Party Royale.
ALTERATIONS
Some cosmetics and items have been altered in Fortnite, mostly due to skulls being banned in China. Skulls represent bad luck, so skulls are censored. Keep in mind the legend of the “Zebra Trooper” (Skull Trooper’s rumored Chinese alternative) is false and is replaced by simply the Hollowhead outfit. So is Ragnarok’s later stage.
Gameplay
Over-Performance
There’s an interesting feature in the typical modes in Fortnite. If you’re performing very well, if you’re just absolutely destroying people on the battlefield, a message will pop asking if you wish to leave the match while getting the same experience for winning (i.e XP, Victory Umbrella) or if you want to stay and keeping beating up noobs. This message was possibly included to enforce breaks or to have other players get a chance to win, now that such a powerful force has the ability to leave the other, less-experienced players to battle it out.
Re-Worked Storm Damage
In Battle Royale, the Storm actually works differently. Yes, in every Battle Royale game, there’s a Storm, Ring, Gas or deadly zone you don’t want to enter. This zone will push people into a small area to fight it out, it’s been like this for many years! However, now there’s an independent bar (You can see in the image above) and if you are in the Storm, your storm bar will go down. After it goes down, you die. This serves as an interesting alternative since now you cannot be damaged unless from fall damage or enemy players. Unlike most of these changes, this one actually makes little sense.
Rewards
Of course, since microtransaction laws work differently in China, there are free rewards for going onto Fortnite’s Chinese version. You can literally earn up to around 400 V-Bucks for hiding in a hay stack or catching a fish, it’s that simple.
Other
Forced Breaks
After 3 hours of playtime, a strange message will pop up in the lobby saying, “You have been playing for 3 hours. XP Rate has been dropped to 50%, challenges are disabled and for your health, you should take a break immediately. Please also arrange your studies/learning time.” This is because China has some pretty strict laws when it comes to gaming, as some see it as a heavy addiction. While it’s fun, yes, they did add forced breaks for the benefit of a player’s health. This is also important because during a weekday, there’s a curfew when it comes to gaming. The rules are 90 minutes on weekdays, twice as much on weekends. (Credit to Top5Gaming for the screenshot)
Strict Laws Against Microtransactions
Xi Jinping, the current president of China, has made some pretty strange decisions when it comes to his country. Nevertheless, a logical one he made is this: “You cannot spend more than 28-57 Renminbi on microtransactions per month.” (Renminbi is the currency in China.) This makes a lot of sense, and in case you don’t know 57 Renminbi is around as much as 8 dollars or euros, so you could only buy Uncommon outfit per month, making “Pay-to-win” games a whole lot worse in China. While a very logical law and one I can see his understanding on, I’m glad Epic Games had a work-around to include free cosmetics.
These are all the differences we found between Fortnite and Chinese Fortnite! This article isn’t to convince you to log onto WeGame or Tecent, because that’s pretty hard! This was just for entertainment, explanation and somewhat educational purposes.
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