Fortnite Blitz Royale (PS5) Review

 

Blitz Royale launched as a time-limited Gamemode in Fortnite on the 18^th of June 2025 and was only supposed to last till the 15^th of July. Blitz however exceeded all expectations so that it was quickly extended for another month before it turned into a permanent Gamemode.

But what actually is Blitz Royale? Well, I am so glad you asked.

Blitz Royale is a small scale Battle Royale mode for 32 players on a comparatively really small map. The map consists of about half the size of a Fortnite Reload map. This was very apparent since Blitz during the first 2 months used a small scale version of Venture (the first Reload map).

In contrast to regular Reload there are no respawns available in Blitz and matches can be played in Solo, Duos, Squads and Six player teams. All matches however are being played in Zero Build. There are no Blitz lobbies with the building feature enabled. Apart from the regular matchmaking, which fills the lobbies with a lot of Bots, there are also specific non-Bot lobbies for Duos and 6 player teams. Interesting that players and content creators always heavily criticized the OG mode for having Bots, but I practically never saw the same criticism being ushered for Blitz Royale.

According to the Fortnite developers the Gamemode was designed primarily for mobile players, but it is accessible for players on all platforms regardless. So if the aim was to design a gamemode primarily for mobile players, than it is questionable if they actually succeeded with this, since it will be mostly Console and PC players dominating the lobbies.

The smaller scale of the maps and lack of respawns however gives Blitz a very fast pace. Matches on average take only around 5 mins, which is really the speedrun version of Battle Royale matches and pretty unheard of in the genre. I really have to give Fortnite credit for this. The idea seems so logical that it is odd, that no one else has done it before. There are smaller round-based Battle Royale games, but there are no other 5 mins BR games for 30+ players out there. I will personally always prefer longer (“real”) Battle Royale matches and Youtube videos over Blitz and Youtube Shorts/Tiktok videos, but there is clearly a huge market for that.

Blitz Royale tries to keep things fresh via weekly variants. Every week users play with a different weaponpool or starting weapons and since Week 7 map changes are also possible. Week 2 for example was based on Avatar abilities, while week 4 brought the Ninja Turtles weapons back. Week 7 gave us the return of Mega City, while during week 9 players were fighting in the Oathbound Citadel. It will be interesting to see how long they will be able to keep the weekly rotations fresh and exciting before they inevitably will have to recycle content at some point.

Another important aspect of Blitz Royale are the Blitz levels. Around every minute players get additional rewards during the matches. Blitz Level 2 for example gives players an additional Boon (which grants players bonus effects) and on Level 3 and 4 they get random golden and mythic weapons for free. This removes the need to lot after the first minute or two.

So far Epic Games has clearly succeeded with this gamemode. During its first couple of weeks Blitz Royale had more players than even the main Battle Royale Gamemode. I don’t think this has ever happened in Fortnite history and at that point it was already obvious to me, that they would simply have to make the gamemode permanent. Blitz launched with more than 400.000 players in June and reached a peak of over 530.000 players in early August. Obviously they couldn’t hold that kind of numbers, but Blitz still manages to average around 100.000 players in September, which still makes it the most played gamemode outside of the main Battle Royale mode. It would have been insane to remove Blitz, while Party Royale or Legends Landing stay in the game.

 

Result:

No matter how you look at it, Blitz Royale has been a major success for Fortnite. While I will personally always prefer the bigger Battle Royale format (especially the OG mode), it’s really nice that the option is there to play a very fast paced alternative as well. Blitz Royale is therefore for me like the perfect appetizer before the main dinner. While it will never manage to outshine the following dishes, it’s always nice to start your meal on a positive note.

It’s also interesting to see, that all the more classic third-person shooter modes in Fortnite, like Battle Royale, OG, Reload and Blitz have far more players than Lego Fortnite, Festival or Rocket Racing. Maybe this could be an indicator that Epic Games should focus on what they can do best instead of trying to represent every videogame genre within one game.

 

7.5/10

Fun with the Fitzgeralds (PS4) Review

Fun with the Fitzgeralds is a scuffed Battle Royale attempt by a Solo developer. Some people cut the developer some slack, because she mentions in the description of the game that she developed it for her 6-year-old daughter. I however have to disagree. She might have meant well, but this regularly costs 7 Euro on the Playstation Store (but somehow only 1 on Steam, how discriminating). The only reason this game has seen a very minor rise in population is, that it was given away for free on the Playstation Store for a while, which has lured in a lot of trophy hunters (admittedly including me).

One of the few resources even more valuable than money is time. I will therefore be totally honest in my review. Fun with the Fitzgeralds is, despite claiming otherwise, not a fun game.

You could probably best summarize the game with ‘scuffed Incredibles trapped in an Unreal Engine Mess’. The characters are very clearly based on the Incredibles family with some minor additions, like grandparents and an uncle. Apart from the character looks, there are however no gameplay or other connections to Superheroes.

The map is very meh. There are a couple of smaller POIs and some different biomes, like a small beach, a snow area, a swamp and a little city, but none of them manage to stand out. They all look like they have quickly been created via some random unreal engine map generator. The smaller map size is probably based on the fact that this Battle Royale game only supports up to 8 players per match. For 20, 30 or dare even 100 players, the map would be way too small, but for 8 the map size is fine.

But let’s talk about the two worst aspects of the game, the gameplay and the technical status. The weapons in the game feel awful. There is no precision or any kind of assist when aiming. Weapon switches are always extremely delayed or sometimes the game even ignores your inputs. Movement also feels sluggish, even though at least not as bad as the gunplay. It’s like the game was just quickly ported over from the PC version without any adjustments. Shooting and moving is no fun in this game and that is kind of important in a Shooter Game.

The other huge problem is the technical status of the game. The game is always pretty laggy and crash prone, even if you just boost with yourself. In an 8 player lobby this gets even worse. There is also no bot support and as soon as all trophy hunters have moved on, the playerbase will be pretty extinct again soon.

The trophies are all pretty easy to gain except for one, which requires 8 players in a match. The game doesn’t feature a platinum trophy and I am still hesitant to recommend it even for trophy hunters.

 

Result:

Fun with the Fitzgeralds is not a fun game. It is a scuffed unreal engine mess and not worth anybody’s time except for diehard trophy collectors. The gameplay is awful and the technical status leaves much to be desired. The regular Playstation price of 7 bucks seem audacious considering how many better and free alternatives are on the market. I have played more than a 100 different Battle Royale games and this game is certainly within the 10 worst.

 

2.5/10

Cosmic Royale (PC) Review

 

Cosmic Royale is a Sci-fi Kart Racing Battle Royale Game. That being said, the game doesn't really play like a Kart Racing Game. While games like Faaast Penguin or Stampede Racing Royale actually play like Kart Racing BRs and games like Jected Rivals or the Eliminator modes in Forza Horizon 4/5 at least are actual Racing Battle Royale games. Cosmic Royale feels more like the racing stages of Fall Guys, just inside of vehicles.

Nearly every map is an obstacle course and the only difference to Fall Guys inspired racing stages is, apart from the track length, the ability to slightly attack other players. This attack ability however is more of a minor inconvenience than an impactful gameplay element. You also have to be really close to an opponent in order to use it, which with vehicles is obviously more difficult than on foot. The races are longer in distance in this game, but since you drive faster with a vehicle, it makes no noticeably difference.

The lack of variety is generally one of Cosmic Royale's biggest weaknesses. While Fall Guys for example has a variety of stages and races are only one of at least half a dozen types, Cosmic Royale has only obstacle courses and occasional survival rounds. There is at least a dozen race stages in this game, but they look and feel so similar. There are stages, where you dodge obstacles, stages where you have gravity elements and stages with a mix of both. The gravity element however is nearly always the same and only lets you jump higher and slower. All these stages just blend together and the rare survival stages are also nothing worth writing home about.

The visuals are contributing to this problem. In general, they are neither disastrous, nor impressive. Cosmic does manage to convey a Sci-fi look. The backgrounds and level elements however all look the same and are very bland, which makes the game far more forgettable than it needed to be. In other games I can always identify which stage I just played. In Cosmic Royale it all feels way too similar.

In 2025 there are hundreds upon hundreds of great F2P games available, which makes it difficult for every newcomer, who doesn't hit the ground running. Cosmic Royale is no exception to this and hasn't managed to gather something like a playerbase. The most human players I ever encountered in a match was 5. Thankfully there are Bots available, who unfortunately don't prove much of a challenge, but at least you can play the game this way.

Controls with keyboard/gamepad are generally fine, even though acceleration via pressing the analog stick forward feels more like a relic of a long forgotten time. Since there are no gameplay elements apart from driving, jumping and the attack, it isn't too surprising that they function decently in this game.

Cosmic Royale does have one really unique feature, but I am not a fan of it. It's called the 'Rewardator'. You can unlock visual upgrades for your car, which will allow you to earn XP for the Battle Pass faster than players without those upgrades. It at least has no P2W element, but I am not a fan of this XP discrimination among players.

 

Result:

I was excited, when I saw a Sci-fi Racing Battle Royale Game on Steam, but Cosmic Royale hasn't been able to match my expectations. The gameplay is fine and I did have some fun, but the game is far to monotonous and bland. In your second and third match the levels will already start to blend together and the lack of human opponents doesn't help with that either. Cosmic Royale is better than average, but to become a truly good game, it needs to increase both the gameplay as well as the visual variety.

 

6/10

Fortnite Ballistic (PS5) Review

 

Fortnite Ballistic is the new FPS mode in Fortnite Battle Royale, which released on the 11th of December 2024. You play in 5v5 rounds, in which one team has to plant a bomb, in this case a 'Rift Point device', while the other team has to defuse it or eliminate the attacking team. The first team which wins 7 rounds, wins the match. It's the same gamemode, like in every of the Counter Strike games or Valorant for example. Even the buy menu for weapons and items in between rounds is nearly identical to that of Counter Strike. So its very clear where Fortnite Ballistic took its inspiration from. The important questions however are: Is it fun? And can it compete it with the best in the genre?

Fortnite in my opinion has never been a FPS and will never be a FPS. Call of Duty tried something similar, when they introduced a third person mode in the Modern Warfare 2 Remake. It was an entertaining gimmick, but it was never a serious gamemode. Call of Duty in third person just felt clunky and scuffed. The same can also be said about the Apex Legends third person LTM from a couple of years back.

Fortnite is good at being a third-person shooter, but the first person gameplay never felt smooth, when they introduced the first person weapons in the later chapters of Fortnite Battle Royale. They now just took the same scuffed FPS gameplay without any improvements and put it into Ballistic to base a whole gamemode around it. All the weapons in Ballistic are from Chapter 5. Another controversial decision to exclusively use weapons from the least popular chapter in Fortnite history. To be fair, I think they just did it because it was a lot less work and they could just copy and paste it.

This is generally a problem of Ballistic. This mode doesn't just feel a bit scuffed, but also quite lazy. I know a lot of people will excuse this by saying it is just "Early Access", but what does that even really mean nowadays anymore? Ballistic launched with a single map (!) and hasn't made any gameplay tweaks for this mode to accommodate Fortnite to a pure FPS mode. I don't think Fortnite could ever be an amazing FPS, but there is a lot more potential in this sidemode, if they would at least put some effort into it. There was no reason to rush this mode out. They could have taken some time, polish the actual experience and release it, when it's actually ready.

There is two other really big issues with Ballistic. Apart from the generally clunky feeling, the first person weapons have less aim-assist than the third person weapons in Fortnite. This would already be a significant disadvantage for console players, but Fortnite also uses the same sensitivity settings for both first and third person aiming, which is of course idiotic. You will now have to choose between changing your settings every time you switch gamemodes or having to play with subpar aiming sensitivity in Ballistic. A lot of the other gamemodes offer separate settings and Epic desperately needs to bring this to Ballistic as well. I am playing a lot of both Console and PC games and this lack of aim assist and sensitivity options is giving most console players a noticeable disadvantage against PC players.

The other big problem is the broken matchmaking in Ballistic. There is a non-ranked version of Ballistic, but for most players it won't even let you queue and result in multiple matchmaking errors. But even if you get into a match in the ranked version, the majority of my matches didn't even start with 5v5s, but with 5v4s or sometimes even 5v3s. The filling up of lobbies doesn't seem to work right. There is supposedly also a disconnect penalty, but I haven't played a single match in a couple of hours of Ballistic were there wasn't at least one disconnect per match. This completely ruins the balance of the gamemode and takes a lot of fun out of it. Letting newer players join during an ongoing match might not be ideal, but it would probably still be better than having matches with uneven player numbers. Nobody enjoys winning a 5v3 or 5v2.

 

Result:

Fortnite Ballistic in its current state is a disappointing gamemode. I have heard some people call it a "Call of Duty or Counter Strike Killer". These people are either trolling or are completely delusional. You can definitely have some fun, but Ballistic is lightyears away from being able to compete with the best games in the genre. I don't think it will ever reach that greatness, but it at least could have the potential to become "very good", which would be absolutely fine for a sidemode in Fortnite. They will have to improve the scuffed FPS feeling of the gamemode, at least offer us separate sensitivity settings for third and first person aiming, fix the broken matchmaking and release at minimum 2-3 other maps. I didn't expect them to launch with a dozen maps, but a single one is pretty pathetic contentwise.

In its current state Fortnite Ballistic gets a 5.5/10 from me. I do think there is a potential for Ballistic to one day maybe reach a 7-8, but that's only if Epic puts in the necessary effort and polish.

 

5.5/10

While Mom's Away (PC) Review

 

While Mom's Away is a goofy and chaotic FPS, which recently released on Steam. The big twist of the game is, that all weapons are everyday objects, like a chips tin and a pizza box as Assaults Rifles and Smgs, a satellite dish as a sniper rifle and a hair dryer as a flamethrower.

Every match has a couple of different minigame rounds. In 'Trophy Steal' you have to hold a gold trophy for the longest time, while the other players have to eliminate you to get the trophy for themselves. In 'Bomb Em All' the last players holding on to bombs are exploding. In one game mode a team has to steal blueprints from the other teams base and there are also 'King of the Hill' and short 'Battle Royale' rounds. The performance of each player in every round is being rewarded with points and the player, who first reaches the point limit, crowns himself the champion of the match.

There are 7 maps in total, which are all rather small and arena like designed. On the one hand, it does fit the gameplay somewhat well, but the maps do look and feel quite similar. A bigger selection and variety would have helped the game to stand out more. There is a Level Editor ingame, which is nice, but since there are barely any players, you will not really encounter any custom maps, which could freshen things up.

The movement speed is quite fast in this game, which adds to the arena feel and in combination with the weapons, gives the game a bit of a chaotic feeling. Nevertheless, the gameplay is overall enjoyable, even though not groundbreaking in any sense of the word.

 

Result:

While Mom's Away is a fun, little FPS, best played in small bursts with a couple of friends. The weapon selection is amusing, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. The gameplay is entertaining, but after about an hour, you will have seen everything the game has to offer. More maps, gamemodes and most of all players, would have really improved the experience. The funny weapons may make it worth a look nonetheless.

 

6.5/10