Riley Halligan Game Dev

Fortnite (Live Game)

ROLE: Balance Designer

DESCRIPTION: Fortnite is a live online third person game available in three distinct game modes (Battle Royale, Save the World, and Creative). I work as a Balance Designer focusing on Battle Royale. In this game mode 100 players jump from a Battle Bus onto an island and attempt to be the final player or squad remaining. Players need to survive fights with other players while also running from The Storm, which creates an increasingly smaller playable area. As a Balance Designer, I have an influence on everything that is involved with the Fortnite Battle Royale player experience. Prior to my role as a Balance Designer, I worked on in game events and the Battle Pass as a QA Analyst.

CORE Work TASKS:

- Analyze player feedback and demonstrate player empathy to make player motivated decisions

- Ensure weapons, items, loot tables, and gameplay is always balanced for all player skill levels and all play styles

- Theorycraft and create new player augments, weapons, and items

- Documenting processes and design changes to futureproof our work

- Playtest live daily to ensure we always have a pulse on what’s happening in Fortnite

- Support additional Design features as needed

Additional Features Supported - Design:

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Fortnite / Epic in the Media:

Fortnite just had it’s ‘biggest day’ ever thanks to Fortnite OG with over 44.7 Million players

It’s happening, actual games are being made in Fortnite

Sorry, Meta: Epic Games is already winning the metaverse race

Silicon Valley is racing to build the next version of the Internet. Fortnite might get there first.

‘Fortnite’ was the most important video game of this decade, and it will be for the next one too

Epic Games Store to continue giving away games weekly in 2020

Is ‘Fortnite’ The Most Popular Game Ever? It’s Beating TV and Movies

‘Fortnite’ Maker Epic Games Is Now Worth More Than Twice As Much As Major League Soccer

Awards:

Game of the Year - Fortnite (Samsung Galaxy Store Awards 2020)

Grand Prix Award in “Digital Craft” (Cannes Lion 2020/2021)

Grand Clio for Experience/Activation (Clio Awards 2020/2021)

Nominated: Best Live Special - Travis Scott and Fortnite Present: Astronomical (The Streamys 2020 )

Special Award - Epic Games (BAFTA 2019)

Studio of the Year - Epic Games (Golden Joystick 2019)

eSports Game of the Year - Fortnite (Golden Joystick 2019)

Best Ongoing Game - Fortnite (The Game Awards nominated 2020 - 2023; won 2018, 2019)

Ultimate Game of the Year - Fortnite (Golden Joystick 2018)

Best Multiplayer Game - Fortnite (The Game Awards 2018)

Most Influential / Best Game of The Decade - Fortnite (Wired || Washington Post || Forbes || Business Insider || Time)

BAFTA || Gamers’ Choice Awards || D.I.C.E. || Game Critics Awards

What working on Fortnite has taught me:

My biggest takeaway from working on Fortnite is learning and demonstrating how to build gameplay for a largescale audience while navigating a constantly moving target. Although our overarching vision and launch cadence is very well defined and we adhere to it as much as we can, we are ultimately a live game. As such, the Battle Royale ecosystem has the possibility of moving and shifting as priorities also move and shift. This means that as a designer I need to constantly know what my players are thinking, feeling, and wanting. Overall, Epic has a very high tolerance for risk in our development process. This allows us to rapidly design and iterate, and our goals may change very quickly at any stage of the dev cycle. Fortnite is on the forefront of changing how players and non players alike consume entertainment and the internet as a whole. Given this, and our rapidly changing dev practices, working on Fortnite has taught me how to execute design practices for that rapidly changing entertainment space while still delivering our promises to our players.