7/10/25: Fortnite Manor Progress Update

7/10/25

This week, I began work on my custom level and game mode in UEFN. Although I had developed several of the main mechanics in my metrics gym, I ended up overhauling them almost entirely, both for aesthetic and practical reasons. Although I had created a custom AI to go with the beacon guards, I found that using the built-in guard AI would be more fleshed out and would integrate more easily with other devices. I also used the built-in set of devices for building and assigning teams, which I was able to complete fairly easily.

Waiting room for players where team selection takes place.

Visually, I stuck with a palette of pieces from several different Fortnite packs: the majority of the building elements, like walls and floors, came from the Grand Glacier Hotel, while the plants and other decorative elements came from several garden sets and the Hexylvania pack.

I started with a rough blockout of the rooms using generic wall pieces, which I then assigned themes to and began to fill in in more detail. I took inspiration from Dead By Daylight in filling the rooms; I tried to add lots of furniture that could be used as partial cover, and broke long hall segments up with doors and corners to keep lines of sight short.

The only space that I wanted to keep open was the core of the building, including the tree and skylight, the balconies, and the entrance and dining halls. Having a large open space in the middle gave more room for mobility between the wings and floors of the buildings and provided a space for more direct fighting.

I waited until the main structure was blocked out to add in movement elements like rails and modulators, and those elements will have to be tested much more before the level is complete. Using Fortnite's built-in building assets made getting the scale and the tone of the level correct very simple, but gameplay was more difficult to get right off the bat.

I'm very happy with how the level is progressing so far; along with fixing a few bugs with the game flow and team assignment, most of the remaining time will be spent on adjusting the locations and settings of the beacons and on completing the remaining rooms in the manor and the exterior grounds to the visual standard I'm aiming for.

I also plan to complete several multiplayer playtests over the course of the week.

Video walkthrough:

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