Nowadays less of a game and more of a gaming platform akin to Roblox, Fortnite's newest addition to its vast pool of game modes, LEGO Fortnite, is fun for a short while, quickly overstaying its welcome the longer you play.

While playing through LEGO Fortnite, I was reminded of Gabe Newell's take on Left 4 Dead after he playtested its beta: "why am I playing this and not Counter-Strike?" Granted, it was a bit harsh of him to say that, considering how vastly different both games are. This is not the case for LEGO Fortnite, however: there are many other games that provide a similar, but better experience that this game provides.

Why am I playing this and not Terraria? It has better progression, after all. Why am I playing this and not Minecraft? I feel like I can express my creativity better there than on this game, after all. Why am I playing this and not Valheim? It has better combat and more weapon variety too. Why am I playing this and not Necesse? I can manage my villagers way better there anyway.

Indeed, why play LEGO Fortnite at all? Well, for one, it's free (however for low-end PCs/potato laptops, I'm not sure if it runs well, while other alternatives are more optimized and easier to run). It's also a LEGO title, so it's kind of expected that you'll have tons of options to express yourself when building your own cozy hut. And indeed it delivers on that front, building in general is very satisfying and it's clear you can build some crazy things in the game, like airships, trains, cars, whatever your heart desires (and the engine allows) you can build. So yeah, playing this on creative might be a fun time.

However, the progression in this game is generally a slog for a multitude of reasons. There's not much of note to explore yet, you usually find garbage in preset buildings anyway. Getting from the first tier of tools to the second one, while not THAT time-consuming, is painfully boring. There really isn't much to look forward to, progression-wise. You take about two hours to go from a basic crossbow/sword to a slightly more durable one. In short, the game fails to hold your attention for too long.

The game is also very unpolished, and it has some questionable design choices too. Chests having ONLY 10 slots is a travesty, especially for a game that has a lot of different items such as this. Items also stack up to 30, so expect your chests to be full constantly. The fact unlocking marginally better chests (those have 16 slots) is part of the progression, since they require tier 2 materials (roots and marble) is CRIMINAL. Your inventory is also small, holding up to 24 items, which again, fills very quickly. Speaking of inventory, I'm not sure if this is a bug or just a nasty oversight on the devs' part, but items don't automerge when you press E/shift-click on them. If your inventory is full, you'll have to manually drag an item to its corresponding stack, and if your inventory isn't full, sometimes an item will occupy another inventory slot instead of going to its corresponding stack. I also believe this game would benefit greatly from having a compass on the top of the screen. Opening the map (which is kinda counter-intuitive to navigate, since you drag it around by pressing RIGHT-click, instead of the more common left-click) everytime to get your bearings straight is kinda annoying, a compass pointing you towards your village and other waypoints would be nice.

Overall, LEGO Fortnite is fun for maybe an afternoon or two with friends. You may get more mileage out of it if you like building stuff, though.