Ask someone who doesn't play Fortnite what they know about the game and they're likely to mention a few things. There are all the funny emotes; no doubt they know that part. It's got that dancing banana fella--he's pretty cool. They'll probably also call it a shooting game or, if they know the term, they'll call it a battle royale game. It's true that for six years, battle royale has been the centerpiece to Fortnite, but in that time, it's also grown as a platform, with 70% of Fortnite players now also routinely playing in Creative mode, the game's user-generated content sandbox with an ever-growing number and breadth of experiences.

But for anyone who didn't yet know Fortnite was already more than a battle royale game, this week's huge update, complete with three new games, beloved IP, and well-established studios, feels like a statement. Fortnite is changing, but its reign atop the video game world seems secure.

Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival come from Epic, Psyonix, and Harmonix, respectively, and they exist as new games found exclusively within Fortnite. After playing them myself at a press event ahead of their staggered launch dates this week, I've trained myself to not call them "modes," as any one of them would make sense as a standalone game. It's sometimes been the case where a game on another maker-game platform like Roblox gets so popular that an outside studio acquires it in a buyout. These new Fortnite releases are sort of the inverse of that. Brilliant studios have been tasked with building new games with the explicit purpose of expanding Fortnite's ecosystem.