Tell me, why are you reading this? Do you realize this is the 6th (arguably 7th) entry in this series? Have you consumed them all and yet still return for more? It’s not like I’ve said anything new since the 3rd installment. Nothing of significance is happening. There is quality, proper journalism out there about the game Fortnite and it’s cultural influence. But here you are, still. And it’s a good thing too, because now we are truly entering the intellectual meat of the issue. Sure, we’ve discussed those tips and tricks that other guides won’t teach you. But now, I must ask of you one thing: consider the “noob”.

The “noob”, a short form parlance of “newbie”, refers to a person or gamer who is new to a specific medium. Also, I haven’t heard anyone use this word for literal years. But luckily, there is Jason R. Rich. The hero we deserve. The man who begets upon the world An Unofficial Encyclopedia of Strategy for Fortniters: Battle Royale for Noobs. And what a generous gift it is that even noobs can be considered Fortniters. For once in this grim existence there is hope.

And then we read the book and, folks, these still suck.

Much like some of the previous books covered so far, Battle Royale for Noobs main content revolves around an A-Z list (which I’ve now realized after a month I can call a “glossary” and save myself a lot of time). But unlike the prior examples of this formula, this list has essentially no theme. It’s just… every term. The operating definition of “noob” for this book appears to refer not just to a newness in terms of game experience, but also in terms of knowing what things are in general. This book explains that when you pull a trigger on a gun bullets go forwards. But let’s not put the nite before the fort. Just like every other book, Section 1 outlines the very basic concepts of what the game is. It’s extra fun this time considering they will restate all of that in the glossary. There are even more strange phrases in here than usual, with many sentences reading as if they have been Google Translated through multiple languages before being put back in English. Even the headings are ungodly amounts of wordy, such as “How to Learn About Weapons and the Damage Each Can Cause.”

Section 2 is seven pages. Seven. I’m not sure what exactly makes it different from Section 1? It’s titled “What Every Noob Needs to Know to Get Started Playing” but it also explains the concept of emotes so the bar for inclusion into this necessary information subhead is low. And just like Section 1 this will all be reiterated within the glossary. I don’t know why this exists as an individual entity outside of padding out the page length a bit with the interstitial blank pages that accompany a new section.

Finally, we get to the meat of the book, Section 3: “An A-Z Guide to Fortnite Battle Royale”. Sadly, we do not have entries for each letter in the alphabet, so this will not work as a tool to teach your kids the ABCs. This reads less as a series or words intended for human consumption and more as the working document that was pulled from to reiterate the same info over and over in all the other books. Throwing it all into alphabetical order highlights some of the strange redundancies in the series. There is a separate entry for both “Backpack” and “Backpack Inventory”, for “Battle Pass” and “Battle Pass Tier”. These entries are right next to each other and could have easily been combined into a single unit each. For some reason the concept of the bar that displays one’s shields is defined separately from the concept of shield. Also, one of the entries is just called “Defeat Opponent”. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a noun, or a command, or an abstract concept. It appears to just describe what happens when a gamer sheds the digital mortal coil of another gamer.

This book devotes more page real estate to a novelty basketball emote than it does for actual game mechanics such as specific types of guns or the Circle. One topic in particular where I’d like some of the elaboration provided to cosmetic and microtransactions is what Experience is in this game. This is the first of the books so far to even mention it and, despite devoting an entry on “Experience Points” I have no bearing as to what they actually accomplish or function they serve. There is more information on contrails under “Freefall” than there is under “Contrails”. There is no respect paid to acknowledging what has already been explained in previous sections. It’ll just re-explain it all over again. On the right side it makes reading this much quicker being able to skip over half of it as redundant, considering this one weighs in at a whopping 133 pages (the longest yet, besting the previous record holder by over 10 pages).

A section about “how to build a 1×1 fortress” is word for word identical to the same guide from Discover The Island’s Best Loot. This is nothing new (literally, ha ha, rimshot, take it to the bank boys), but the strange part is that despite not going through the effort to rewrite the body copy for the tutorial, they used entirely new pictures. Stranger still is that the A-Z list here seems to also opt to include seemingly every single location in the game, as already covered in ATK Driving or Whatever That Book Was Called. But in a fun twist, instead of copying the body copy and getting new images, these ones use all the same images but with totally new body copy. And isn’t that fun?

Throughout the books, “End Game” has been referred to as a proper noun of sorts. A physical concrete thing. But as far as I can tell this is not a proper noun, it’s just an abstract concept entailing things that happen close to the end. This is why we should just abolish capital letters all together. Speaking of which, the entry for End Game lists multiple strategies for the final moments of a game. One of these tactics is rushing an opponent’s fort. The following paragraph enlightens us to the fact that “more gutsy gamers” can opt to… rush an opponent’s fort instead. But to hell with it, now I’ve got a subtitle for the part where I dump a bunch of tidbits I couldn’t fit anywhere else.

THE END GAME:

In case any fans out there are looking for a new Tinder bio from a Fortnite guide book, I offer you: “adorable but offers no competitive advantage.”

I’m glad it is clarified that the “Locker” is a virtual storage space. I was worried I’d have to rent out a storage unit to play the Fortnite.

One of the entries is “muscle memory” which just like, I’m sorry I can’t even make a quip.

A definition of the word “nerfed” but not the word “buffed”. C’mon, it’s 2019, get the positive mindset going Jason. Good vibes only.

A certain cosmetic pet is described as “a lizard-like creature” despite clearly just being a lizard.

Likewise, another pet is described as “a virtual dog”, further crushing the dream of gamers everywhere that Epic Games is mailing out actual dogs to all the gamers.

Finally, I understand the concept of “large rocks.”

In conclusion, I wish I could light a pdf on fire. Unfortunately, even if I could, I still need to keep these to reference back to for more examples of copy pasting so here we are I guess. Good vibes only.