The New Fortnite Chapter 2 is Actually Pretty Fun

Since its launch in 2017, Fortnite has taken the world by storm. Pun intended, that storm has swept a cultural phenomenon over the country in the form of fun dances, breaking down houses, building endless towers, and jumping out of flying buses. That may seem like a fantasy stretch, but Fortnite has entertained both young and old for two years now with its funky gameplay style. Fortnite became an extraordinary success, drawing in more than 125 million players in less than a year from launch and earning hundreds of millions of dollars per month, shooting unknown internet players into worldwide celebrity status. It has since continued its success of game domination on youtube and streaming platforms. On October 15^th, the new era of Fortnite emerged and fans everywhere have praised the updates.

So, what has changed?

Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games. There are three distinct game modes for the game, but the most popular is called Battle Royale; where up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing in a map with a shrinking storm. Stay too long in the storm and the player is elimated. Players can also elimiate each other during shootouts. Players can play solo, duo, a squad of 4, or a rumble set of 20.

Fortnite relaunched after a meteor struck the battleground island that players have been exploring and competing on for the last two years. A black hole sucked up the map and left gamers with a black screen for a few hours. Now, the game’s new reworked map is up to officially launch Chapter 2 of the game. Featuring a brand-new island for players to explore, hidden challenges to find, a revamped visual style, and a more complete gaming style experience.

Fortnite is no stranger to capturing the attention of the gaming community. Even with its lowering gamer numbers in the months before the change, the introduction to Chapter 2 has all but recovered any slope felt. Gamers were excited for the change, intrigued by the black hole, and interested in what changes were to come with the update.

The opening scene of the new revamped game has players diving into the unknown new battleground without any tutorial, aimlessly exploring the brave new world with nothing but their hammer to smash things with. Players need to scramble for a weapon in hopes to beat their opponent around the corner, or suffer a quick death. Players fight for their life until they, inevitably, die. That’s when the screen loads and players are taken to their normal log in screen to begin the different game modes. A bold and triumphant way to throw players, both old and new, into a new gaming exploration.

Naturally, one of the first things to notice is the updated visual design of both the world and the play style. Epic took great care into the redesign with seamless lines and curves, bold colors, and sweeping landscapes. There are fantastic new areas to explore on the map, towns and factories, farms and mountains, swamps and coral shores, adding new adventures to finding weapons and other supplies. Everything feels fresh, and exploring the new island brings back the excitement of the game when it shot into existence back in 2017. Players can still destroy pretty much anything on the map as well.

The interface style to the gameplay is, undoubtedly, the most striking contrast from Chapter 1 of Fortnite. The play style is much smoother. So smooth it feels far more like an actual shooter game than before. The weapon mechanics are more shooter friendly compared to the wonky Chapter 1 mechanism. Aiming is crisp and long-range weapons even have bullet drop. Switching between items is easy and quick, keeping much in line with the original method.

Building is also cleaner. Chapter 1 had an absurd combination of whoever could build the fastest would win, no matter how ridiculous the tower got. Chapter 2 has a more evenly balanced technique to the building mechanics. Building doesn’t get in the way of the shooting mechanics as much and players have an even playing field of defeating each other without the need for sky-high towers.

Some of the new designs consist of funny features like being able to carry teammates to safety or throw opponents off cliffs to defeat them. Other new features consist of items, such as the missile-firing speedboats that allow players to speed through the land, both on land and in water, to cause chaos.

While all of these changes don’t feel like playing a new game and keep much of the same feel of the older version, the little tweaks have created a huge impact to the overall gameplay. Gamers who didn’t play the original Fortnite are willingly flocking to the new design with interest in the new mechanics and gameplay features. Many famous streamers are complimenting the changes as are old fans of the game.

Looks like the reign of Fortnite will continue on into the foreseeable future.

Fornite is available on both video game consoles and the pc, free-to-play.