Epic Games is launching a new social game called Fortnite’s Spy Within, which is the company’s version of popular betrayal titles like Werewolves and Among Us.
The game is based on and named after the popular Fortnite Creative user-generated map, Spy Within, which was created by gamers/creators KKslider and Dolphin Dom. A lot of players might view this as predatory as Epic Games is trying to muscle in on the turf of Among Us, a popular indie title. But it’s a familiar pattern, as Among Us is based on the older Werewovles title and Fortnite’s battle royale mode is based on the design of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Epic’s model is to evolve Fortnite to be whatever it needs to be to hang on to its users.
While Among Us came out in 2018, it skyrocketed in popularity this year after streamers started playing the simple 2D game. And that inspired KKslider and Dolphin Dom to build a version of the game inside of Fortnite, which has a section of the map where players can create their own environments for games, dubbed Fornite Creative.
In the Fortnite version, players are dressed as characters from Fortnite, the popular battle royale game that has had more than 350 million downloads. Spy Within has two players, known as the spies, try to eliminate other players in the space station without revealing their identities as spies. They must do this before the rest of the crew (eight other players) completes their tasks or votes the spies out.
Players can use the new Fortnite video chat feature from Houseparty to meet and find the spy. Spy Within is a new limited-time Fortnite event for the holidays. Epic Games acquired Houseparty as a synchronous face-to-face social network with video communication on mobile and the desktop.
