The Fortnite franchise made national headlines for its blackout. But now the game is back with Chapter 2.
What happened: After a mysterious blackhole overtook the game this past weekend, fans were treated to an entirely revamped version of Fortnite that includes a new arena and map, updated characters, a new reward system and completely overhauled mechanics that will change the way gamers compete, per ESPN.
Map: The new Fortnite map has 13 new locations for gamers to explore. The islands includes a lot of rivers breaking up the main islands. Smaller islands exist on the outside.
New moves: You can now swim through the water or you can ride a boat, which can fit up to four gamers at once. The new version of Fortnite also allows you to hide in dumpsters. You can also carry teammates and other players on your shoulders while in the game, too.
Quick review: Your reporter spent about an hour Tuesday playing the new Fortnite. The game runs a lot smoother than the previous version. And it was exciting to receive rewards in the middle of the match. You earn rewards for earning assists, kills, collecting items and working your way through the game, rather than grinding hard to complete weekly challenges that, during the previous season, felt repetitive. The new reward systems seems like it’ll be less of a grind than the previous iterations — you don’t want to know how much time this reporter spent trying to knock out the rewards for seasons 7 and 8 — and may bring casual players back to it.
Flashback: Fortnite ended its 10th season with a massive event on Sunday at noon MT. Rockets destroyed the center of the island. The island sucked everyone into the game, creating a massive blackhole in the middle of the screen.
Strategy: Rod Breslau, an esports and gaming consultant, told CNN that Epic Games went into a blackout and relaunched the game to inspire more interest.
- “Fortnite season 10 is coming to an end, and all of this is hype for season 11,” he told CNN. “Instead of just the standard update approach that Epic does for Fortnite ... which is going down for a few hours to apply an update, Epic has created an entire marketing and social media campaign, along with a narrative story around it.”