Could Fortnite Ballistic ever compete with CS2 and VALORANT?

With the full Fortnite Ballistic release date yet to materialise, we’re analysing the current state of Epic Games’ early access 5v5 tactical shooter and how it stacks up against its competition in 2025. While built on the foundations laid by the likes of CS2 and VALORANT, Ballistic has many of its own ideas but is currently held back by some truly baffling decisions made at the top, which are holding it back from greatness. 

We’re going over everything you can expect to find in Fortnite Ballistic mode right now, but also turning our attention to the future, with how it can improve to become a genuine competitor with some of the best FPS games available to play. This includes an overview of the ranking system, casual play, the weapons available, the maps, and everything else you need to know. 

The Fortnite Ballistic mode was launched in early access in December 2024 and is an upcoming first-person 5v5 shooter in the vein of CS2 and VALORANT, utilizing Epic Games’ ecosystem for a grounded tactical shooter. Unlike modes such as Battle Royale and Zero Build, there is no huge map or random weapons to pick up in the game world. Instead, the objective is to plant a Rift Point Device, the game’s mode version of the bomb/spike from its contemporaries, with a fixed series of weapons from a purchase menu. 

Despite its early build status, Fortnite Ballistic has a competitive scene with its Ranked mode having a full system in league with VALORANT ranks. There are currently 18 ranks in the game, going from Bronze 3 to Elite. However, the systems are still in their infancy, as the title is incredibly rough around the edges and currently light on content. There are only 10 weapons with just a single map available, Skyline 10, for play. It’s available for players on not only PC via Epic Games but also Xbox and PlayStation platforms through their respective storefronts as standalone downloads. 

Fortnite Ballistic was incredibly popular at first, when it originally launched at the tail end of 2024, so much so that its concurrent player count briefly outclassed that of Battle Royale for a limited time, with a peak player count of around 260,000 (via Game Rant). While you can still play Ballistic Ranked, its numbers deeply trail behind the likes of more popular Fortnite game modes in 2025. 

The Fortnite Ballistic Ranked usually pulls in around 7,000 players, according to the official listing page, whereas Battle Royale routinely brings in around 200,000. The likes of Ranked Reload pull in around 10x that of Ranked Ballistic, with 80,000 players on average, and Epic Games announced it would be “temporarily disabling” casual Ballistic play earlier this year. The critical and player consensus has been mixed, with people likening it to an “unserious VALORANT” with smooth gameplay that’s otherwise lacking behind the competition. PC Gamer described it as “clunky and dull”, whereas Kotaku said it was “good, but a bit janky”. Fans have been equally lukewarm about its current state.

While CS2 and VALORANT are among the biggest esports FPS games on the planet, it’s important to remember where we were before this. Seeing the success of CS:GO from Valve, Riot Games put its answer, Project A, into action, looking to steal the thunder from the Steam owner’s long-standing reign. In contrast, Epic Games has a history of being “inspired” by popular game modes of the time. The only reason we got Battle Royale in the first place was due to the boom in popularity with PUBG, when Save the World was the horde mode premium product. Now, we’re looking at how Fortnite Ballistic compares to its biggest rivals. 

Outside of the initial similarity of being a 5v5 tactical shooter, Ballistic has a faster-paced feel than either CS2 or VALORANT and a much more forgiving approach to its weapon handling, with less punishing recoil. In the way that VALORANT innovated by incorporating elements of the hero shooter into the Counter-Strike formula, Ballistic gameplay looked to make the genre far more accessible without sacrificing the round-based gameplay, buy menu, bomb and defusal gameplay of its clear inspirations. There’s certainly a place in the market for a pick-up-and-play take on this style of gameplay, even if Epic Games hasn’t quite cracked the code… yet. 

Caption: While shell maps are great, FPS games live and die on their varied locales

The biggest way for Fortnite Ballistic gameplay to compete with CS2 and VALORANT effectively is to drastically improve the amount of content available by including far more weapons to play with and maps to use them on. Secondly, Epic Games needs to enable casual play instead of forcing its more casual take on the 5v5 tactical shooter to, ironically, only be playable competitively. This is the biggest hurdle to overcome, as it has made a game mode that’s supposed to be welcoming but instead is artificially intimidating by raising the bar to entry. When gamers see ranked play, they think of people who know the game inside and out, and that can be off-putting for a younger and more casual market. 

With a shot in the arm in terms of content and the right sponsorship backing, there’s a fair shot that Fortnite Ballistic mode could become a staple in today’s esports scene, just as we’ve seen from Battle Royale. All the bones of a solid 5v5 shooter are there, with tight gameplay, good graphical presentation, and a rewarding round-based system that eases up on the otherwise rigid nature of CS2 and VALORANT. Does Ballistic have a chance at coming for those leading player counts and viewer figures? Even with Epic Games’ extensive budgets and influence, it seems as though the company isn’t willing to invest wholeheartedly into the idea, making it more of a fun novelty than a genuine contender. The modes need work above all else, but Counter-Strike and VALORANT were far from perfect in their infancy; Epic Games just needs to take the step forward in trying, instead of leaving the mode out to die. 

Fortnite Ballistic early access has endured some teething pains since it first arrived on the scene in December 2024. While it initially overtook Battle Royale in terms of popularity, its fire quickly faded when Epic Games disabled casual play, forcing players to engage in competitive matches for its supposedly accessible take on an otherwise intimidating genre. While the gameplay is solid, it’s seriously lacking in content right now. There’s a huge amount of potential, provided the developers can give it a shot in the arm that it needs to succeed as a multiplayer game in its own right instead of just being another flop in the Fortnite ecosystem.