Fortnite's forgotten original mode Save the World will be free to play

Save the World is being set free

The original game mode in Fortnite — in which players built a fort and tried to survive the night against a horde of zombies known as Husks — is going free to play after more than eight years. Epic Games announced Wednesday that the mode known as Fortnite: Save the World will become a free-to-play title on April 16.

Fortnite: Save the World has been sold at a variety of prices over the years, and Epic was recently selling the mode as part of a $19.99 bundle that included Fortnite V-Bucks as part of the package. When it arrived in 2017, Fortnite's original survival mode launched in early access for $39.99. As of Wednesday, Epic has pulled Fortnite: Save the World from digital stores as it prepares for the free-to-play relaunch in April.

Fortnite is better known for the battle royale mode that was added to the game in 2017. The original loot-built-survive game mode, later rebranded to Save the World, was in development for years before that and was publicly unveiled in 2012 at that year's Comic-Con in San Diego. It was Epic's first game built on Unreal Engine 4, and was originally intended for PC platforms with a path to go free to play at some point. Epic later reversed its free-to-play plan for Save the World, only for that plan to finally come full circle in 2026.

Fortnite: Save the World will be free to play on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It will also be available through game-streaming services like Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. However, Save the World will remain unavailable on smartphones and tablets (including through cloud gaming) and the original Nintendo Switch, Epic says.

Epic has opened pre-registration for Save the World's free-to-play launch, with the goal of hitting 1 million registered players. To goose those numbers, Epic is promising in-game rewards, including a free Save the World hero. For players who have already paid to play Save the World, they'll receive Superchargers, Vouchers, and Gold on April 16. Those who bought in at the Founders level will continue earning V-Bucks through daily quests, mission alerts, Storm Shield Defense Missions, and existing challenges, Epic says.