Fortnite is the living, action building game using Unreal Engine 4 from Epic Games. You and your friends will lead a group of Heroes to reclaim and rebuild a homeland that has been left empty by mysterious darkness only known as "The Storm".

Band together online to build extravagant forts, find or build insane weapons and traps and protect your towns from the strange Monsters that emerge during the Storm. In an action experience from the only company smart enough to attach chainsaws to guns, get out there to push back the Storm and save the world. And don't forget to Loot all the things.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few months you might have heard rumblings on social media about Fortnite. A game that's quickly gaining incredible popularity for various reasons not least of which is that it's free to play and available on various gaming platforms - including a mobile version which is just now launching.

You might not be aware of what Fortnite is though, how it works, how to play or why everyone cares so much. We're here to help with a breakdown about what the game is about and everything else you need to know.

What is Fortnite Battle Royale?

The original version of Fortnite was intended by developers Epic Games to be a zombie survival game. An open-ended experience pitching co-operative players against waves of zombies while giving those players the ability to gather resources and build bases to defend against the oncoming hordes.

Coming around the time that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was starting to make waves, the development team decided to build and release a new free-to-play mode for Fortnite with a similar Battle Royale style.

This new style of game is based on the Japanese thriller "Battle Royale" originally released in 2001. The premise of the gameplay is simple enough - 100 players are dropped from an aeroplane (or in Fortnite's case a floating battle bus) onto a large island where they then need to fight it out against one another until there's a final survivor or surviving team left.

To add to the tension, a randomly placed shrinking circle of doom forces players into closer and closer proximity as the game progresses. Anyone caught outside this zone will inevitably die and be removed from the running. The game is therefore not just a fight against other players, but a race against the clock.

Fortnite Battle Royale already copied PUBG in a big way by more or less ripping off its basic structure, beating it to console and releasing for free to boot. The formula that turned a struggling zombie survival game into the biggest PvP shooter in the world was, in most ways that matter, the PUBG formula. In that context, the idea that PUBG could be copying Fortnite is something of a bitter pill for both PUBG fans and its developer, even if the competition has become a little less acrimonious and a little more collegial.

Still, that's obviously what it's doing. Fortnite did a lot of things better than PUBG, even if PUBG still did some things better than Fortnite. And that's why it's great that PUBG is starting to borrow some of what made Fortnite so successful. Not to get all free market about it, but this is competition working the way it's supposed to, with both games borrowing from each other to continually provide a better experience for the gamer. The battle royale genre is still on its way up, and there's room for everyone.