Day one of the 2012 San Diego Comic Con kicked off with a preview of Epic's new IP, Fortnite. As a new IP, Fortnite lacks the immediate brand recognition of, say, a Gears of War game. But this unfamiliarity is one of the most attractive aspects of the game, both for gamers and for Epic themselves.

"We felt like we needed to do something new," infamous designer Cliff Blezinski said. And this is most definitely something new. Part Minecraft, part tower defense, Fortnite continues to defy expectations at every turn. 

Gameplay in Fortnite will be split into two major phased, daytime and nighttime. During daylight, you will be scavenging randomly-generated worlds for scrap, and returning this scrap to your home base where you will use it to build up more defenses. And how do you get your hands on scrap? By smashing stuff, of course! In the brief demo we saw, the player used her ax to chop down trees, fences, and mailboxes for wood. She then returned to her home base and, using a blueprint and an intuitive point-and-build system, crafter a rudimentary wooden house in no time flat.

When night fell, things became much more interesting. Zombie-like enemies known as Husks swarmed outside in the darkness and did their best to bring the walls down. The player fought them off as best as she could using her ax, but ultimately it became clear that a more defensible position would be necessary.

This led into the next morning, which was spent gathering more wood. Flash forward to Day 4 and our hero had made quite a home for herself. She was now defending a large barn decked out with staircases, windows, and doors, all of which were built by her from scratch using materials scavenged from the environment. She even started gathering brick and stone to reinforce some of the walls.

Unfortunately, as your base gets bigger, so too do the enemies. A giant, club-fisted husk tore through the wall as our demo drew to a close.

If the Husks prove too much, help will be just a button click away. Fortnite has been built from the ground up to allow for multiple players to cooperate and survive. Players will be able to devise more devious strategies when playing together. One player might head out in the day to gather materials, for example, while the other goes out and hints monsters. 

When it comes to doing combat, Epic wants to make sure that players have plenty of options. A crossbow weapon was shown off in addition to the standard ax, and the flexibility of this weapon is testament to just how many ways you can choose to play Fortnite. As a purely combat-focused tool, the crossbow can be incredibly potent when upgraded to fire three bolts at once. More devious players can upgrade it to spew electricity, effectively creating a trap when fired into the ground. Exploration-minded players can even fire out a tightrope to walk to hard to reach areas. How the upgrades will work Epic hasn't quite decided yet, but it's fair to say that the system is looking very interesting and flexible so far.

Fortnite came out of nowhere and has emerged to be one of our most anticipated games of Comic Con so far. We'll have even more on the game soon, and tons of coverage of other Comic Con news, so stay tuned!