When I'm away from home for extended periods of time, which, to be fair, is not very often, I miss the setup. I don't know if I could survive a whole month without it, and neither would English soccer player Jordan Pickford.

As spotted by Eurogamer (opens in new tab), a recent interview with the goalkeeper showed him carrying a rather heavy hard travel case with his initials engraved on it. Inside the case is a powerful custom-built gaming laptop and a monitor to which it is connected. Pickford said that although he had decent equipment at home and brought his laptop with him on the trip, playing "Fortnite" (open in new tab) on the small screen "was getting to [him]."

England's love of Epic's Battle Royale is well known; in a 2018 interview with defender Kieran Trippier (opens in new tab), he said that during the last World Cup, the team used "Fortnight" as a team builder and a way to relax between matches. It was revealed that they enjoyed playing "Fortnite. Players such as Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli were also spotted doing the Fortnite Celebration Dance during that period.

The fervor seems to continue. When interviewer Josh Denzel asked Pickford what he does to relax between games, he replied, "I recover, I change my mind, I do whatever I need to do. Fortnite, it's still a Fortnite vibe." When Denzel pointed out that he is a "proper tool," Pickford said, "I'm not messing around," he said, "I'm trying to get the best frame. I'm trying to get the upper hand."

I am curious to know what Pickford's setup is like at home and on the road. He seems to especially love Fortnite. He doesn't mention any extra peripherals in his travel case, but I doubt he's running around the map with a trackpad.

It's understandable that Pickford doesn't want to miss Fortnite while he's away on World Cup business. Chapter 4 (open in new tab) marks a whole new era of battle royale. Upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.1, Morgan Park said the game became a "graphic powerhouse (opens in new tab) overnight." He was right, the game is quite bloody beautiful, and it has me excited for future UE5 games like "Tekken 8" (opens in new tab) and "The Witcher 4" (opens in new tab).