As a whole, Fortnite Chapter 2 has thus far been defined by its massive crossovers and frequent in-game events, but the more recent trajectory for the game was pointing downward. Sure, engagement remained high and the game is reliably at or near the top of all platforms’ most-played games lists week in and week out, but consecutive swings-and-misses from Epic Games dating back to a few months ago had left me and some other fans wishing things were different.
Now, two-thirds of the way through a season that has done well to earn back some of that wavering fan trust, it was Ariana Grande who played the part of unlikely hero in rescuing Fortnite from its slow but noticeable decline.
In my mind, Fortnite’s losing streak started with Season 5. Following the immensely popular and Marvel-heavy Season 4, perhaps expectations were always going to be unfairly high, but Season 5 is widely considered a bad season even without the shadow of Iron Man and friends looming over it. While the inclusion of The Mandolorian as the Tier 1 battle pass skin made waves, the bright spots of the season really start and end there.
The center of the map was strangely barren, with the too-large Colossal Coliseum surrounded by hundreds of meters of sand and little else. It was surprisingly boring for a game that has for so long dazzled players time and time again with new, inventive locations each season. Making it worse, a new traversal system that sought to have players burrowing through the sand like a sandworm was broken a few times during the season for extended periods of time, leaving players vulnerable in this central wasteland of the Season 5 map. If you’re not one to build efficiently, this flaw in map design was unkind to you for days or weeks at a time.
The season was light on exciting events and was the first in many months to end without the bang of an in-game event, though players did get their cinematic fix with the start of Season 6 and the Zero Point Finale, but the game felt like it was at its lowest point of Chapter 2.
Season 6 didn’t do a lot to course-correct either. The hunting-focused season brought some interesting new crafting and survival elements to the game, which exist in a limited form even today in Season 7, but map changes were once again lackluster, mostly removing places like Hunter’s Haven and the fan-favorite Butter Barn, but not replacing them with anything.
To its credit, Season 6 did remove the dry desert taking up much of the center portion of the map, but once more, the season as a whole felt like Fortnite was spinning its wheels. The most exciting parts of Seasons 5 and 6 were their numerous crossovers with characters like Kratos, Master Chief, and Lara Croft, but Fortnite’s best moments are when the community can come together and enjoy the game, not just its Item Shop. Personally, I didn’t miss a single weekly challenge or even most dailies during either season, but they became rote parts of my day. Looking back, I was completing challenges for the same reason I brush my teeth: because I was compelled to do so, not because I was excited
The slump continued with the springtime NBA crossover event, which saw fans team up to take on in-game challenges and represent their favorite NBA squads. But predictably, the event was won easily by the Lakers contingent, blowing out the competition with a final in-game score greater than the sum of the next four best-ranked teams. The event was flawed from the start and marked the first time I consciously dwelled on the slump the game was in.
Epic then followed that with the Cosmic Summer event, which doled out free cosmetics to players who participated in fan-made limited-time modes (LTMs) Come from Sports betting site VPbet . Frustratingly, these LTMs were all extremely tedious, in such a way that I was genuinely stunned to see the developer highlight them so prominently. Before Cosmic Summer, there wasn’t a Fortnite event I ever ignored, no matter how much I didn’t like its content, simply because I love completing challenges and earning free cosmetics.
But after dragging my feet through two of the game’s four LTMs during Cosmic Summer, I threw in the towel. I couldn’t bear to engage with the modes anymore–ice cream truck emote be damned. It seems silly to accuse Fortnite of a “slump” given its perpetually high engagement, but it’s all relative. Compared to where the game was a year ago, it felt like Fortnite was cooling off and ever so slowly losing its place in the zeitgeist.
The first half of Fortnite in 2021 left a hole in the hearts of players like me who adored Seasons 2-4 and today consider them the strongest run the game has ever seen, introducing adored characters like Meowscles, delivering incredible finales like the fight with Galactus, and displaying some of the biggest map overhauls to date like the Season 3 flood.
It was the longest drought of awesome new content the game had ever seen since its rise to dominance over three years ago. Then the Rift Tour happened.
Following weeks of rumors, Epic confirmed that popstar Ariana Grande would headline an in-game concert similar to last summer’s Travis Scott show. To be honest, I’d never heard an Ariana Grande song before, but knowing what Fortnite’s past in-game concerts looked like, I was hopeful that the Rift Tour would revitalize the game’s community-at-large, as well as my own love for everything Fortnite. I was not disappointed.