Review: Fortnite Chapter 2

As the end of Fortnite season ten came to a close, theories were running rampant about what Epic Games would do next. Destroy the map? A new game mode? A new game altogether? Well, it ended up being all of the above.

The fateful black hole took over social media, with hundreds of thousands of people staring at a mostly black screen searching for cryptic numbers and messages appearing every so often, teasing something new, something different. Loyal players were searching for some indication of the servers coming back online just to see what had changed.

Then they came back online. And Fortnite Chapter 2 was live. No patch notes, and no blog post to tell players what had changed, everyone just had to dive into a different-yet-familiar game completely blind, which was such a refreshing change.

After entering the game for the first time, you’re shown a short cutscene and then thrown straight into a solo Battle Royale game. While unexpected, I personally really liked the surprise of it!

An abundance of new mechanics are now in the game for you to play around with…

There is a new map (finally) with a few familiar locations, but the entire map itself feels completely alien to previous seasons. An abundance of new mechanics are now in the game for you to play around with, including but not limited to: actual swimming and diving, fishing for health boosters and ammo, in-game bots in place of players, group emotes, the ability to physically carry downed teammates, hiding places like deep bushes that you can jump out and attack from, upgradeable weapons and a brand new experience progression system. It’s a lot to learn without patch notes.

The new exp. system was something that really stood out to me as a player who got a little bored around the last season and stopped playing. Now, you get exp. throughout the game, as opposed to at the end, gaining more exp. for things like eliminations, surviving certain lengths of time and even opening chests. It feels much more streamlined and more rewarding, although some players have reported it feeling like a grind at higher levels.

Fortnite Chapter 2 has been a really positive change for the game, adding in enough new mechanics and things to explore to get me playing the game again

The new weapon system also feels like a positive change as well. There’s less of a reliance on getting a gold weapon from a chest, and more of an emphasis on using your resources to upgrade weapons from one rarity to the next.

All in all, I think that Fortnite Chapter 2 has been a really positive change for the game, adding in enough new mechanics and things to explore to get me playing the game again, as well as keeping it entertaining for regular players. Considering this is a completely free content update for a free-to-play game, there really isn’t much to complain about. I’d highly recommend this update to anyone considering getting either on or back on to the Fortnite train.
WRITTEN BY KAITLYN MARACLE