Tilted Towers

Tilted Towers was a large city with the most loot in the game in its original iteration. The city itself featured various skyscrapers, buildings, and streets. Among these buildings was a notorious clock tower, which became an iconic part of the city. Each building in the city was destructible within the game's mechanics.[1][2]

During development, Tilted Towers was designed to be one of the largest locations on the Fortnite island, intentionally placed in the center of the map to increase player engagement and designed as a city comparable to the existing locations of Pleasant Park and Retail Row. A large amount of in-game weapons were placed in the location, with a developer describing it as "a place where many players could choose to land, and still be able to get enough weapons to be able to hold their own".[3] The location was added to the game in an update in January 2018, alongside four other locations.[4]

A couple months later, a meteor appeared in the sky, and players began to believe that the location was going to be destroyed.[5][6] Players began en mass visiting the location and developers began adding teasers to the location, leading more to believe the theory.[7][8][9] Soon after, the meteor missed Tilted Towers and instead struck Dusty Depot, with only one building in Tilted Towers being effected.[10] In a "live event" during Season 8 of Fortnite, Tilted Towers was destroyed in a volcanic eruption alongside Retail Row except for one single building, known as "No Sweat Insurance".[11] Tilted Towers next season was reconstructed as Neo Tilted, a futuristic metropolis.[12]

Throughout Season X, Neo Tilted was be replaced by Tilted Town, a wild western town where building was disabled, which was then replaced shortly after with Gotham City in a crossover event.[13] At the end of Chapter 1, the entire Fortnite map was sucked into a black hole, destroying Gotham City and the rest of the map.[14] In Chapter 2 Season 5, Tilted Towers was merged with another location known as Salty Springs, creating "Salty Towers".[15] Salty Towers was later destroyed and replaced with Boney Burbs.[16] At the end of Chapter 2, the Fortnite island would be flipped upside down, revealing a new island and removing Boney Burbs from the game.[17]

In Chapter 3, the original Tilted Towers reappeared on the new island, underneath the Chapter 2 map. The city was originally buried under ice and snow, but would defrost in January 2022.[18][19] During Chapter 3 Season 2, an in-game war between factions known as the "Imagined Order" and "The Seven" resulted in the destruction of several buildings in Tilted Towers,[20] which were reconstructed by the games community.[21][22] Near the end of Chapter 3, Tilted Towers was consumed by an entity known as the Chrome, becoming Tainted Towers.[23] At the end of Chapter 3, the Chrome would fracture the island into several pieces, destroying Tainted Towers.[24] The city's clock tower managed to survive the destruction and was placed on the new map for Chapter 4.[25]

Tilted Towers was the most popular location in Fortnite amongst players during its existence. The variety of available weapons in the location resulted in many players in each game going to the city, and it has become one of the most iconic locations in Fortnite history.[18][29][30] As a result of the high amount players, Tilted Towers had the highest rate of player eliminations in the game and was where most players were killed.[31] The related location, Salty Towers, was the most popular location in Chapter 2 Season 5.[32] In contrast to its popularity amongst players, reception from critics on the location was mixed, mostly due to its aforementioned popularity.

During Chapter 1, Christian Donlan of Eurogamer stated that Fortnite should "definitely nuke Tilted Towers". They criticized the abundance of players going to the location, describing the cities popularity as its problem. Landing at the location was described as "being dropped directly into the meat grinder".[1] Cecilia D'Anastasio of Kotaku described Tilted Towers as evil, and that they were designed to make the average player hate themselves.[33] During Chapter 3, Phil Owen of GameSpot described the city as "psychological torture", stating that there were an "infinite number of places to get shot from" when building was an unavailable option. It was brought up that the location was not properly adjusted for the "Zero Build" game mode.[34]

Tilted Towers has been recreated numerous times in Fortnite Creative in the form of "zone wars",[35] in recreations of the original Fortnite island,[36] and in Minecraft.[37] It also appeared as a location in place of the Boardwalk in Fortnite Monopoly.[38] In September 2018, Tilted Towers temporarily had an address on Google Maps in the place of the One World Trade Center.[39] In November 2018, Swedish DJ Alesso released a track named after Tilted Towers in a collaboration with Ninja.[40] The release of Knockout City (2021) was described by Rock Paper Shotgun as "if Fortnite's Tilted Towers was expanded into a bustling metropolis".[41]