Fortnite is the biggest game in the world, and it keeps on growing. After starting out on PC, Fortnite has moved to PS4, Xbox, and the iPhone, and had a crossover event with the Avengers. The battle royale game even counts Drake as a fan.
The iconic Lofi Girl is now in Fortnite — or, at least, her room is. A new Fortnite map lets you run around the bedroom as if you were in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, collecting music notes and sneaking a look at what’s under the bed. It’s unsurprisingly pretty chill, except for some of the platforming sequences.
Welp, since Star Wars Day falls on a Saturday, it makes sense that Fortnite would finally release it’s long-teased Star Wars collaboration today. Star Wars is expanding across the entire Fortnite ecosystem. There are new skins in Battle Royale, new builds in LEGO Fortnite, special decals to unlock in Rocket Racing, and a Mos Eisley cantina stage in Fortnite Festival.
Crossovers between Fortnite and Star Wars are nothing new, but the latest is the most expansive so far. And that’s because it covers not just battle royale, but also Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival. Importantly, that means you can now rock out as Lando — who we already knew was a great dancer.
If Epic’s Tim Sweeney is excited it can only mean bad news for Google or Apple. In this instance, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ordered an evidentiary hearing for May 8th to explore whether Apple is “failing to abide by this Court’s injunction, which requires it to implement certain practice changes relative to in- and out-of-app purchases.”
The collaboration is taking place for a third year running, but this time Coachella’s presence will look a little different because of Fortnite Festival. The Guitar Hero-like mode will feature tracks and artists pulled from Coachella’s line-up, and things kick off on April 11th. You can check out the full details right here.
Epic reiterated its plans to launch the Epic Games Store on both iOS and Android this year. And as part of that, the company released a concept image that looks a lot like, well, the Epic Games Store. Only mobile.
Epic has been teasing Fortnite’s new season for a bit now, including having a gigantic hand literally opening Pandora’s Box inside of the game. Now we have a trailer that shows off some more of the Greek mythology-themed update — called “Myths & Mortals” — which launches tomorrow. Time to grind the rest of that season 1 battle pass while you still can.
That’s not much of a surprise, as she teased it yesterday, but now we have the goods on Gaga’s appearance as part of the new season of Fortnite Festival. You can get all of the details right here, but check out the important part — the skins and accessories — in the gallery below.
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A few years after asking the internet what “fortnight” is, Lady Gaga is hinting that she’ll be making an appearance in the game through Fortnite Festival. That’s not too surprising — there are a few pop stars in Fortnite — but the real question is whether there will be a Lego Gaga.
The Game Developers Conference kicks off next month, and once again Epic will be holding its State of Unreal keynote. Last year the company showed off more of its metahumans, the Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and more; afterwards I had a nice, long chat with Tim Sweeney about the metaverse. You’ll be able to watch the keynote on March 20th on both Twitch and YouTube.
The game is getting a big TMNT update today, where players can unlock this excellent Krang back bling by completing some missions. There’s also a new mini battle pass that nets you Shredder if you purchase it, and some turtle-themed gameplay additions including, obviously, restorative pizza. Check out the full details here.
Epic’s new partnership with Disney is just one more step in building out its virtual realm.
As promised when the current chapter launched back in December, Metal Gear’s Solid Snake has now officially joined the cast of Fortnite. Battle pass subscribers will have to complete a few quests to unlock Snake, while everyone else will get to hide in cardboard boxes around the island. Check out the full update notes right here.
The FTC extended the deadline to February 29th; previously, the deadline was January 17th. Epic will pay $245 million.
Now that Fortnite is a collection of games instead of just one, the update notes are pretty packed. The most recent includes notable tweaks across all four of Epic’s in-game experiences — battle royale, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival — and you can check out the full run-down right here.
Fortnite’s annual winter event kicks off today, and it will include one big addition: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The four brothers (along with April O’Neil) will be hitting the game’s item shop “soon,” according to Epic Games. The best part is they all have Lego minifig styles for playing in the game’s new survival / crafting mode.
Somehow it had never occurred to me that despite collaborating with some of the biggest franchises in the world, Fortnite has never featured Nintendo’s characters. “Nintendo has their strategy and we have our strategy, and we hope at some point” to use their characters, Epic’s head of Fortnite’s ecosystem, Saxs Persson, told Axios last week. “Our players would love it.”
[Axios]
Donald Mustard, who used to head up Fortnite’s story, shared a six-year-old sketch of how the team at Epic Games imagined Fortnite could evolve from a battle royale hit into a series of different experiences connected by a central “hub.” Following the recent avalanche of launches for the Lego, racing, and music modes, it’s remarkable how close the game has actually come to the vision in the sketch.
Also, I saw this weekend that the company is working on support for instrument controllers for Fortnite Festival, so Fortnite may become even more like Rock Band someday.
Epic’s rollout of games inside of Fortnite continues. Today it’s Rocket Racing, from Rocket League developer Psyonix, which is — as you’ve probably guessed — a 3D arcade racer. With rockets. I played a bit of it earlier in the week and it felt like a pretty slick game, one where you spend almost as much time flying through the air as speeding along the road. You can check it out for free right now in Fortnite.
[Epic Games' Fortnite]
There’s a new “cinematic trailer” for Epic Games’ forthcoming Lego Fortnite experience, and while the trailer doesn’t have actual footage from the game, seeing all the Lego-ified Fortnite characters running around is pretty delightful.
The experience launches on Thursday, so we won’t have to wait too long until we can play it ourselves.
The Weeknd just shared a teaser of his upcoming appearance in Fortnite Festival, the new in-Fortnite music-themed experience developed by Harmonix, and it features a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it look at what it’s like to actually play Festival. You can jump into the new experience starting December 9th.
Ahead of The Big Bang event happening at 2PM ET, Epic has released a quick look at the game’s impending Chapter 5. It includes a new island, a train to ride, some revamped movement mechanics, and the ability to heal and move at the same time. Talk about innovation. Oh, and as the leaks suggested, both Peter Griffin and Solid Snake are there. Players now have just a few hours left to enjoy the nostalgia of Fortnite OG.
Epic Games said Friday that the game had 100 million players in November, which apparently broke a record. The Fortnite OG season, which has taken the game back to the Chapter 1 island, also broke a Fortnite player record on its first day.
The OG season is set to end on Saturday with a “Big Bang” event featuring Eminem. The game’s next season might add Peter Griffin and Solid Snake.