A smaller splash.
Tilted is no more. The whole island Tilted ruled is no more. And this means it’s interesting times for Fortnite. I’ve been getting used to Chapter Two’s new island for a while now – I know parts of it quite well even if the overall arrangement hasn’t quite clipped into place in my head – and I end up thinking about Tilted quite a bit.
Tilted was a singular focal point for the map on the first island. It was almost a game within a game, a special, faster mode in the middle of a wider battle royale. The big question in Fortnite used to be binary: Tilted or Anywhere But Tilted? The new island makes things more complex.
Basically, it has a bunch of what I would class as Mini Tilteds. It’s a bit like when Superman died and there were suddenly a handful of wannabes running around vying for the job. I like all the Mini Tilteds, but one really stands out. Lazy Lake. Lazy Lake is not the new Tilted – it’s not a question of Lazy Lake or Anywhere But? It’s something better. It’s one choice out of many. It’s my favourite choice.
I’ve been trying to work out why that is. Lazy Lake is smallish: a handful of buildings, one or two quite tall by the standards of the new map, many of them fairly small and hiding secret basements and that kind of jazz. Around it on one side at least is a raised lip of ground, so you can still do that Tilted thing of standing outside and firing in, but all on a much smaller scale. Lazy Lake is actually kind of snug.
And it’s the snugness that I love, I think. Lazy Lake is actually really complicated, and when you’re inside it it can be like being inside the track boundary at an F1 race – the sounds seem to come from everywhere! It is a warren of rooms and stairwells and lift shafts and little patios. It has what they refer to as that indoor-outdoor-living-thing on Selling Sunset. You’re never quite sure you’re safe.
And if you get up high with a sniper rifle, there is a wonderful play of building facades and windows. You can spy people across the way inside another building, minding their own businesses. You can snipe people in one building through another. Tilted had scale, but Lazy Lake really makes its smaller footprint work for it. It’s compacted, and feels like the result of prolonged thinking about what works and what doesn’t work in a game like this. Tilted’s gone, then, but Epic’s means of replacing it has been pretty fascinating.
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