Review: Fortnite's ESPN Basketball Island Shoots and Misses
Fortnite and ESPN have teamed up once again to bring players to ESPN Basketball Island. Let’s check out the new map!
ESPN is bringing more sports-themed fun to Fortnite. Last year, the sports network brought ESPN Football Island to life, bringing players into a game-filled world celebrating the sport. While the ambitious map remained a bit glitchy, ESPN Football Island was a fun way to enjoy Fortnite past its traditional Battle Royale gameplay. With the release of ESPN Basketball Island, let’s see how the new offering compares.
Stepping into ESPN Basketball Island feels nearly identical to Football Island. A robot sits at a desk, allowing players to inquire about all the map has to offer, with ESPN SportsCenter anchors Randy Scott and Gary Striewski occasionally appearing on the screen behind them. The only difference here really lies in a slight change of decor, with collectible basketballs lining the staircases rather than footballs.
The island has four main activities to join in on, with the main event being Dunk to Win, a capture the flag competitive game inspired by basketball. The highly stylized court let’s players choose different loadouts inspired by different basketball positions.
Essentially, you’ll need to head to the middle of the map and grab the ball, scoring on the opposing team’s side.
Unfortunately, the map was pretty low on players, making this gaming mode unbalanced when I played. My team won, which was great, but the other team wasn’t full and didn’t make a single basket the entire round. I imagine playing this mode with friends would be really fun.
Next up we have Swing Shot, which is an updated version of Football Island’s field goal challenge. Instead of jumping in a quad bike, players board a Baller vehicle, which has been retrofitted to look like a basketball. Using the vehicles grappling abilities, you’ll need to swing yourself across the court to score a basket. This was a lot more fun than the irritating quad bike challenge. There were three starting points on the map allowing more players to try at once. While not very replayable, I did enjoy this change.
When ESPN announced Basketball Island, they promised a much greater challenge in the map's obstacle course. For Football Island, the challenge was a very typical obby, leading players up to the jumbotron. The Ocho Obstacle Sprint was far more complex. It was genuinely challenging, and probably the most exciting part of the map for me. I wish it had more respawn points like Football Island, but the challenge was very replayable and it required a lot of strategy and patience.
The Boxtagon also made a crossover to the new map. In Football Island, I never got a chance to try it, as it glitched everytime I played. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough players on Basketball Island to try out this challenge either.
If I’m being one hundred percent honest, Basketball Island is a weak addition to the game. Football Island was robust, with mini-games, places to explore, and had a much more interesting main mode. Basketball Island essentially copy and pasted the basic premise of Football Island, leaving behind many of the smaller details that made Football Island enjoyable. While this would be more forgivable if the map performed perfectly, Basketball Island still managed to glitch out through most of my gameplay. I think ESPN really missed an opportunity to bring a more unique experience to Fortnite, celebrating the sport rather than pushing out an already existing experience with a weak retheme. Hopefully, they will add more to this map, as a game mode inspired by professional basketball has so much potential. Overall, if you’ve played Football Island, you’ll be fine skipping Basketball Island.
Fortnite is a free-to-play multiplayer game from Epic Games and is available on all major gaming consoles and PC.
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