Epic Games Has Made One Huge Mistake With ‘Fortnite’ Chapter 2

This is the single biggest problem with Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 1.

Credit: Epic Games

Okay, to be fair, Epic Games has made quite a few blunders when it comes to Chapter 2 of Fortnite.

First off, calling it Chapter 2 is a mistake. They should have simply gone on to Season 11. Now we have to deal with saying Chapter 2, Season 1 and then Chapter 2, Season 2 and it’s just awkward and clunky. Go back to normal seasons.

Oh, and locking weekly challenges behind completing others? That’s incredibly lame and totally pointless.

Meanwhile, the lack of a steady stream of new content and modes makes the game feel much more stale than it should. Remember when we got new modes all the time like Food Fight and Disco Domination? Yeah, that’s not the case these days at all.

But by far the biggest, most egregious mistake Epic Games has made in Chapter 2 is extending Season 1 all the way out to February 15th. The season began on October 14th, 2019 and instead of lasting ten or eleven weeks like most seasons is sticking around for a whopping four months. That’s one third of a year for one season.

It’s absurd. It makes the entire experience a drag even with a cool Star Wars event and a generous Christmas event. After those events are over, we still have over a month before the season ends. The whole thing has become a tedious slog without even any sort of interesting clues to follow over the course of the season.

I guess I understand the need to slow down sometimes. Epic has been accused of placing high loads of workplace crunch-time on employees, and if that’s a practice that’s changing I’m all for it. But a balance needs to be struck or the game could suffer. If players start getting bored and tuning out, that does nobody any good.

If the future of Fortnite is less weekly map changes, modes, weapons and items, I can live with that. If it’s four-month-long seasons with weeks and weeks without any challenges or new stuff to do except the odd event or crossover, I think the game will be in trouble.

So far, it’s just a shame that Epic has made so many changes to how they release seasons and challenges. I really wish they’d go back to the way they used to do things. Clear weekly challenges that unlock right off the bat (the only challenges that should be locked behind completion are multi-stage challenges, which are fine). A good variety of challenges that include basic scavenging, combat and objective challenges like Treasure Maps or finding sheet music. Clear start and finish times with only short extensions and overtime challenges. And some kind of abstract story filled with fun clues like we’ve had in the past with the CUBE, the rocket, the comet and so forth. That’s a winning formula. (So are fun daily objectives like Fortbytes!)

Four-month-long seasons with very little interesting going on and an overly confusing Battle Pass? No thank you. Hopefully Epic is taking some of this time making some big changesâ€"many of which revert to the way things used to beâ€"and Season 12 is a huge step in the right direction. I won’t hold my breath simply because I can’t possibly do that for another six or seven weeks.

Tweet