What is Delulu?
Delulu is a new limited time game mode similar to Zero Build (ZB) Fortnite. It’s a first person shooter game where the last person standing wins. Played on the same ZB map with 80 players instead of 100 there are a few other key differentiators:
- Proximity Chat – players within earshot can hear everything you say and vice versa.
- In-Game Team Formation – although everyone begins the game alone, players can form teams of up to 4 players. To invite and accept team members, players interact with special handshake emotes. Even though players can be part of a “team,” they can leave and their “team” at any time and only one person can win the game.
Delulu Redeeming Moments
I encountered my share of fun moments playing Delulu. Players with all types of different natural voices as well as voice modifiers asking to be their “friends” and helping each other figure out the new game mode was fun. Here’s one such funny clip of a “Talking Corn” befriending others. You’ll notice that even though it’s quite funny, it still doesn’t end well.
Friends?
Although players can make friends (join teams), only one person can win the game so inevitably each player is on their own. I encountered many players that appeared friendly, but were actually quite mean. Even worse, they thought it was funny to be mean. This is an unavoidable component of Delulu and the main reason why I won’t be playing it nor recommending it to others. It will be interesting to see how Epic handles this as bullying is against their terms of service. Here’s an encounter that I had in the game with so called “friendly” characters.
Delulu Profanity
As a family friendly streamer, I work to keep my game play profanity-free. This is simply not possible with proximity chat. Inappropriate words were frequently heard by others that I do not want to be promoting on my channel. The one day that I streamed Delulu, I had to remove the family-friendly tag from my stream.
Closing Thoughts on Delulu
According to an article on “The Gamer,” Epic had to ban “thousands” of accounts due to violating their Terms of Service over Delulu. Though the game can have some very fun moments, the premise of the game is to make and break friends. In other words, deceive your friends for the “win.” This lesson does not align with my values nor is it one that I’m socially comfortable with. PopsPlaysToo is taking a hard pass on Delulu.
