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What would happen if you took Minecraft, Left 4 Dead and Orcs Must Die and threw them all in one big blender? The end result might look a little bit something like Fortnite, the upcoming fort-building and monster-slaying title from Epic Games, in which players are dropped into a procedurally generated world that requires them to build during the day and defend at night.

A newly released video of gameplay footage from Fortnite highlights the three different game phases: resource-gathering, building, and the final showdown. The first two stages can last as long as players like, in order to allow a leisurely gathering of materials from the surrounding area and enough time to build up weapons and a fort around the central defense point - known as "the Atlas."

Forts can be decked out with all manner of traps for creatures to get caught in, but these alone will not prevent enemies from making it to the Atlas. Once the storm is triggered, players must throw themselves completely into a fight that comes in from all sides (which is where the cooperative play becomes very important), and this means that part of the fort's construction should involve plenty of things to jump on in order to traverse the fort both vertically and horizontally with ease. Check out some screenshots from Fortnite below.

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"Verticality" seems to be one of the current favorite buzzwords in gaming, with Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel taking advantage of the moon setting's minimal gravity, Sunset Overdrive promising plenty of opportunities to bounce upwards through the many layers of Sunset City, and even Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare offering boosted jumps and long falls in military exoskeletons. Fortnite's towering constructions certainly are very trendy in that respect.

Fortnite also seems to fit into the current fashion of making action games that actually have a lot of vibrant colors in them (see also Splatoon, Sunset Overdrive and inFAMOUS: Second Son), which seems to be a response to gamer complaints about shooters being too awash in grey and brown. It certainly adds to the game's visual aesthetic, and one detail that's particularly enjoyable in this gameplay video is the way that parts of the fort slowly build themselves according to the player's instruction, with bits of wood and metal falling out of the sky and into place.

Fortnite will eventually be free-to-play, but you can also sign up for a chance play the Alpha build on the game's official site right now. The game will release exclusively on PC later this year.