Since its reveal back at the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games' Fortnite has been an intriguing title, but one with a ton of mystery surrounding it. The promise of a game that combines the solid third person shooter mechanics of Gears with the fortress building and survival of Minecraft is certainly an exciting one, but ultimately it will come down to execution.

Since Fortnite's unveiling, however, Epic Games has undergone a lot of changes, losing key figureheads within the developer like Cliff Bleszinski and Mike Capps in the process. And during that time Fortnite took a back seat to what seemed like more pressing matters, namely the development of Unreal Engine 4.

Now, it appears Epic Games is back on track with Fortnite and are ready to say more about their upcoming game. As a result, Fortnite has snagged the cover story for May's issue of Game Informer, which promises new details and closer looks at the game.

While this is just the formal cover reveal, Game Informer's post does include a promo video highlighting Epic Games' work on Fortnite as well as some new footage from the game. We've included it below:

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At a glance, it appears that not much has changed in the world of Fortnite — the game still looks a lot like it did when we saw it at Comic-Con 2012. Obviously, Epic has improved the fort building and third person shooting mechanics with the addition of RPG-like leveling and loot systems, but it appears that the time out of the limelight hasn't fundamentally changed Fortnite's core concept.

In fact, it seems a more likely scenario that Epic Games announced Fortnite well before it was ready for a public unveiling. Perhaps they wanted to get the name out there to see how gamers responded - to say here's something completely different from the developer best known for Gears of War and Unreal Tournament - and moved forward from there.

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As was mentioned, this is just step 1 of Fortnite's latest promotional push, so gamers can expect plenty more details in the days to come. And, for those that might already be sold on Epic's Gears-meets-Minecraft concept, the developer has announced an alpha test, which gamers can sign up for here.

What about Fortnite has you the most intrigued? Do you think Epic Games has a potential hit on their hands?

Fortnite currently has no release date but is a PC exclusive.

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Source: Game Informer