Epic's Minecraft Meets Left 4 Dead Shooter Getting Beta Later This Year

A beta for Fortnite, the next game from Gears of War and Unreal Tournament developer Epic Games, will begin later this year.

Epic Games revealed the game will be coming to Mac, along with the PC version, at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference today. A more specific date was not provided, only that it would be sometime in the remainder of this year.

First announced in July 2013, Fortnite has been described as Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead. It will feature unscripted events that challenge players to explore environments for resources and then build fortresses that must be used to defend against waves of zombie-like enemies.

The game also features an RPG-like progression system and "Diablo-like looting." Other revealed features include multiple campaigns of "varying lengths," as well as procedurally generated worlds and some kind of PvP component.

The game is the first since Epic's drastic refocus from developing multiple high-profile titles to focusing on one project at a time.

Epic Games sold the Gears of War franchise to Microsoft earlier this year for an undisclosed sum and is transitioning to become more like League of Legends developer Riot Games and Dota 2 house Valve.

"Now we're building several games at different scales. We're building Fortnite, a PC online game which is a fun, sort of Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead," Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney previously said.

"It's a 35-person team. It's not aiming to beat Call of Duty in terms of graphics. It's more of a Pixar art style and a limited project in scope, just aimed at fun as opposed to massive breakthroughs in scale."

Alpha testing for Fortnite began on December 2014. Online Test 1, as it was known, was designed to ensure the game's various features, such as sign-ups, patching, and gameplay functioned properly.

For more on the game, read our latest Fortnite hands-on preview, in which Peter Brown found himself unexpectedly won over by the game.