Creative Destruction Review

Apparently, Prince Harry wants Fortnite to be banned in the UK. You just can’t buy publicity like that. Epic’s battle royale shooter is the undisputed hit of the last two years, so it’s no surprise that other developers are getting in on the action.

Creative Destruction understandably sticks closely to this winning formula, with more or less the same gameplay on and off the battlefield. It does it very well, though, and with a few flourishes of its own.

So you start each round in the same way: cruising over a 4x4km island in a flying bus before leaping out and deploying your parachute. You share this island with up to 99 other players, and your goal is simply to be the last person standing.

This island never changes, but every game plays out very differently because a) it’s huge, b) you always land somewhere different, and c) the playable area gradually shrinks, and it always closes in on a different point, funnelling players together for a final showdown in a region that different pretty much every time.

While the specifics are always different – i.e. whether you end up in a snowy region or a scenic coastal spot – the overall arc of each round is broadly similar. When you land there are probably no other players in sight, so you spend the opening moments searching buildings and dropzones for guns and other loot to prepare you for the coming violence.

This is necessary because you begin with a Destructor and nothing else. This chunky rifle may sound, well, destructive, but it only destroys buildings, cars, trees, and that sort of thing. It’s pretty useless against humans. Destroying that other stuff is vital, though, because you can use the material this generates to create new structures.

Anyway, movement is handled in the normal way, with the left of the screen dedicated to getting around and the right to looking around. There’s a fire button on either side of the screen, so that you can run and shoot or look and shoot as the situation requires.

Other context-sensitive buttons include jump, crouch, open chests, zoom, and several different building options: wall, floor, room, and ramp.

Building is every bit as important as shooting. This concept takes a little while to sink in, but watch any shootout between two experienced players and you’ll see them dynamically creating ramps and walls to make space and shelter. A duel in Creative Destruction is a dynamic process of managing cover and position while trying to get the odd shot in.

This is true of Fortnite too, of course, but the cover is much more friable in Creative Destruction. You can take an opponent’s buildings apart almost as fast as they can make them, which radically alters the way that cover functions, making duels more flowing.

The Solo mode is the one you’ll probably spend most of your time in, but you can also play in Duo, Squad, and Fireteam modes. Plus, until the end of April you can jump into the Bumblebee event mode and, if you’re lucky, drive the iconic first gen Autobot around the island, or even fight in his robot form.

Outside the battlefield there are daily missions, guilds, a wheel of fortune, and a handful of different currencies to manage, some earned in-game and others bought with real cash. There’s a lot of stuff to buy, too, some of it cosmetic and some of it deadly.

You can check out the newly updated Creative Destruction here if you’re based in Europe and Japan, and here if you’re located elsewhere.