Ballistic is a disappointment. The 5v5 tactical FPS reconfiguration of Fortnite is available right now within the Fortnite app, and if you were excited for the paradigm shift that could come from Fortnite developer Epic Games turning their attention to the competitive FPS, you should probably wait a bit longer before diving in.
Ballistic plays out exactly like Counter-Strike in that you buy weapons and grenades, pick up your bomb (Rift Point Device here) and go plant it at one of the bomb sites. Die and you're dead for the round, and the winner is the last team standing or the folk that just planted a bomb successfully. This will feel familiar if you've played Valorant, Call of Duty's competitive Search and Destroy mode or one of a number of different shooters that have tried to perfect this formula and fallen short to the big three.
But it won't feel familiar if you're used to playing Fortnite. Ballistic doesn't work for a bunch of different reasons, but a major point against it is that, at this stage at least, none of the Fortnite players here to try out the hot new thing have any idea how to approach a tactical shooter. In the hour that I've played today I've had to beg players (unsuccessfully) to drop the Rift Point Device so we can plant the bomb after capturing the bombsite, and watched blank-faced as players bunny hop while firing wildly, something that works great in Fortnite but here is almost totally ineffectual.
There's also a confusing lack of map knowledge, which is impressive as the Ballistic mode has launched with just a single map, Skyline. I don't mean to rag on the playerbase, but it means the matches right now don't feel competitive, even in the 50% of rounds when someone isn't standing AFK in the spawn.
Get past the players and the game is clunky. Fortnite is full of fluid movement and here all of that is stripped away and it feels like you're controlling a fridge freezer with legs. You have a mantle to clamber onto chest-high objects and a half-arsed crouch, but that's about it. The weapon selection will feel familiar to Fortnite fans, but is a little lightweight for my tastes: two submachine guns, two assault rifles, two pistols and a sniper rifle is all you've got to play with right now.
Time-to-kill is low and this is an aim shooter rather than a movement one, so planting your feet firmly before you fire is the best way to get results. Ballistic is more forgiving than Valorant or Counter-Strike, or at least it appears to be—notably it's actually possible to hit a target if you're strafing gently, an inhuman feat for all but the most elite Counter-Strike players—but an early meta pick would be the pump action shotgun, which will hit the middle third of your screen even if you're doing your best Sonic the Hedgehog impression.
Fortnite has always struggled with making combat feel impactful and Ballistic is no different. In one of the rounds from my first game I killed four players, which would be enough to have my whooping and cheering in Counter-Strike. Maybe the lack of impact to each bullet is feeding into the disinterest other players seem to have in staying alive. The real struggle is that Ballistic doesn't have any texture—it's a featureless porridge of its influences, garnished with Fortnite theming.
I don't think this will matter, in the end. Because it's all made with Fortnite assets, I was able to hop in and play it without a second thought from the menu. This is going to draw in a nearly captive audience who want to try a new experience but still do it within Fortnite.
And why would they leave that bubble to play a shooter on Steam? All of your cosmetics are available in Ballistic already, which means Ballistic reached the "silly cosmetics everywhere" event horizon on day zero. In my first game I teamed up with Robocop, Omniman, John Wick and Ariane Grande to murder the Avengers. Your weapons all have their skins, and if you're familiar with the guns you'll already know how their first person equivalent will handle.
Screw X—if anything has become the everything app, it's Fortnite, which will direct you happily to Rocket League, Fall Guys, Ballistic or any of its own creative spin-offs without you leaving the launcher. This lack of friction and the untold amount of money Epic is making from its free-to-play empire means Ballistic is going to be a hit, and it'll probably end up being a very good game indeed, should Epic meaningfully tackle its gunplay and movement and guidance for first-time players. But it isn't there yet, and I can't think of a reason outside of masochism or a morbid curiosity that you would want to play it in its current state.
