Fortnite Battle Royale’s brand new chapter is a game changer

Millions of players watched from their monitors and televisions as a meteor burned through the atmosphere making its way towards the Fortnite map. With the help of seven rockets, the meteor crashed its way into the zero point (an anti-gravity area surrounded by an orb) resulting in the map getting sucked into a black hole. Then the game was gone. Gamers could only stare at a black screen.

Fortnite was not the first Battle Royale game created, but it was the game that brought unprecedented attention to the genre. Many players didn’t expect that Fortnite would make it through 10 seasons. Indeed after years of incredible growth, the game started to lose players. Gamers started to complain about the brute mech, the addition and removal of health on kill, and the material reduction. Epic Games wanted to bring players back to the game, so they created a brand new chapter. 

After 36+ hours of staring at a black hole, Chapter Two of Fortnite arrived. Along with the release of the new chapter came the addition of bots (non-player characters).  After watching the trailer for the new chapter you will load into your first match which is filled with bots. This makes it easy for most players to win their first game of the season and make them want to play again. The addition of bots depends on how many wins you have. The more you have, the fewer bots there will be in your lobby. Bots will generally be extremely easy to kill and will usually start spinning in circles and swinging their pickaxes if you get close enough to them. This allows players to get some easy kills and make them more comfortable with the game.

In the first chapter of Fortnite there was a variety of different weapons, throwables, and consumables. Everyone had their own opinion on if a gun was completely balanced or way too overpowered. Epic Games had decided to remove most of these weapons with the release of the new chapter. Over 28 items and weapons were vaulted on that day, which completely changed how the game was played. You would no longer have to worry about someone jumping into your box with their heavy sniper or throwing stink bombs at you until you run out of materials and health. 

Fortnite was at its most popular in the third and fourth seasons. The game was a lot simpler and a lot of fun to play. There was little to no mobility on the map, so you would have to pay more attention to the storm so you would not get caught in it. Due to the mass weapon vault and the vaulting of all vehicles and mobility items, this is the case once again in the new chapter. The only way to get around the map now would either be to swim down a stream, drive a boat, ride a zipline, or just run as fast as you can. This chapter may be new, but as far as how the game is played, it is quite similar to the very beginning of the old one.

This season has also added new mechanics to the game such as the ability to swim. In the previous seasons of Fortnite you would have to slowly march your way through the water to get across it, whereas now you can swim like a dolphin for increased mobility. Currently, swimming is one of the four mobility options in the game. Another mechanic is that you no longer take fall damage when you land in the water. This makes the well-known season one strategy called “skybasing” a bit easier to pull off as long as you are building above water.

Another change to the game was the leveling system and the battle pass. In the previous seasons of Fortnite you would have to focus on completing challenges to gain tiers, then you would have to worry about reaching a certain level to unlock certain cosmetics and emotes. Epic decided to combine the battle pass tier system and the leveling system into one. Now you can unlock all the Battle pass rewards just by leveling up and playing the game. Your battle pass tier depends on what level you are and how much XP you have. This allows players to focus more on enjoying the game and less on completing challenges.

Though these two chapters look very different, they are virtually quite similar, from flying ATV’s to boats that can drive on land and doing the emote “Take the L” on downed players to yeeting them off of a cliff. It seems like Epic is trying to make the game new and more exciting while also making it feel like you are playing in the earlier seasons where you would be able to throw your friends off a cliff in a shopping cart.

Cover Image: Epic Games