Fortnite Creative 2.0 x 100 Thieves – Bank Heist Game Mode Explained

100 Thieves announced their new Fortnite game mode called “Bank Heist” coming to the community creator list July 11th at 11 AM PDT. Bank Heist will be available by searching the community pages or by using their island code that goes public tomorrow. I got a half hour of game time in so here’s what to expect going into Bank Heist.

Bank Heist is a 3v3 team-based game. You can queue in with a group of 6 if you want to face off against your friends and your teammates will be randomized when you enter the game mode. One team of three are the Defenders, and the other team are the Attackers.

There are four set classes you can pick: Muscle, Tank, Grenadier, and Sniper. Each has specific guns tied to their classes with the Tank having a shotgun, Grenadier getting throwable explosives, and the Sniper getting, well, a sniper rifle. There’s another class you can pick that randomizes your loadout every time you select it called Wildcard.

Each match is split into three stages: Bank Heist, Escort the Payload, and Extraction.

In the first stage, the Attackers’ goal is to infiltrate the bank and successfully drill into the underground vault. The Defenders have to guard the vault and hold off the Attackers until the timer runs out. If the Attackers succeed, stage 2 is launched.

Once the Attackers are through the vault, they’ll have to escort a payload to a designated endpoint. This stage plays a lot like Overwatch’s escort the payload concept where you have to be near the payload for it to move forward. Defenders must stop Attackers from getting the payload to its destination and run the clock down.

If Attackers get the payload to the drop point, a new building opens for them to run into, grab cash bags, and run to the getaway helicopter and drop money into it. You can choose to extract with as little or as many cash bags as you want as long as it’s within the time limit set. Defenders can destroy the helicopter before Attackers fly off with it and the helicopter will explode and respawn until the time runs out.

This is the base gameplay loop of Bank Heist and each team swaps sides to determine the winner. It’s a best of three game mode and if one team succeeds in winning two matches back to back, the game is over immediately without a third match.

It’s a fun team-based game but it felt very Attacker-sided. The timer runs a bit too long and seems to give the Attackers too many tries to succeed so it feels like if you’re on the attacking side, you can’t really lose. Your Fortnite MMR is supposed to carry over to matchmaking in Bank Heist so hopefully that’ll help with keeping team player balances from getting too out of hand.

Of course if you queue in with your friends then the balancing won’t be able to really work the way it should, but at least you’ll know everyone you’re playing with. The weapon balancing felt decent, especially with Wildcard being an option. However, only one person on the team is allowed to be a specific class so you have to choose wisely.

Bank Heist is just one of the many game modes available on Fortnite’s community hub created in Unreal Editor for Fortnite. 100 Thieves is set to release more updates for Bank Heist after it’s published and create more Fortnite Game Islands in the future.

Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.