In Fortnite: Battle Royale, Season 8 has begun, but our author Jürgen is less thrilled about it. Read here what bothers him and what he expected.
Normally, I get as excited as a little kid when a new season in Fortnite starts. It all begins with the teasers four days before the launch. When the morning of the launch day arrives and the specific new features and the Battle Pass are revealed, I can hardly wait to start gaming.
However, Season 8 was already off to a bad start. The teasers barely excited me; strange creatures and pirates? Previously, the Ice King theme or Halloween were more concrete. It all seemed a bit out of place.
Reasons why I don’t like Season 8
When Season 8 started, my mood did not improve, and the more I saw of the new features, the less excited I became.
The theme is strange
As was already clear from the teasers, the theme of the season is pirates and strange creatures. In the end, it was pirates and ninjas.
With that, Epic has once again recycled two of the most overused cliché characters in media history. In my opinion, there were definitely better and more original concepts available.
There’s hardly anything new
When Apex Legends came out and became an instant hit in the Battle Royale genre, Fortnite suddenly sprang into action. I thought, “Wow, they will surely bring some really great new things in Season 8 to keep the game fresh.”
After all, prominent players like Fortnite master Tfue complained that Fortnite had become stale and outdated and could only compete with Apex if it reinvented itself. Such competition should energize the game.
But nothing of the sort has happened. Season 8 seems to be extremely conservative. There are only three new locations in the northeast.
Additionally, features have been removed, including the airplane, which not everyone liked, but for me, it added quite a bit to the game.
Instead, we now have geysers, which are basically just permanently installed trampolines. There are also convenience features that could have been added to the game earlier.
The Battle Pass is rather dull
What I actually look forward to the most is the new Battle Pass. If there are cool skins and emotes, I plan whole evenings to unlock them. But this time, there’s hardly anything that really excites me.
The two starting skins are the already mentioned ninjas and pirates that I do not value highly. Later, there’s a silly elf and a banana. Even the banana seems a bit too silly to me.
Even the tiger guy doesn’t impress me, and the level 100 skin Bingeralla looks cool, but if I had to guess, I would never have interpreted it as the ultimate outfit.
Their variants are also just dull reskins for which I have to survive up to 25,000(!) opponents. When I saw that, I really had to think, “Seriously, Epic?”.
What’s still cool about Season 8
However, not everything is bad in Season 8. The following features are still fun for me and, in my opinion, are a good idea:
- The Ping system: Ever since Apex Legends, I don’t want to play any Battle Royale game that doesn’t have pings!
- The shared challenges: I’ve been expecting this feature for months, and it’s finally here. This makes teamwork more fun again.
- The cannons: Launching yourself from cannons was already cool in Sea of Thieves. This concept fits perfectly with Fortnite!
- The fox pet: The Battle Pass has one highlight – the cute fox Schlawina. I must unlock her!
How Season 8 might get better
Season 8 has just begun, and the three factions of pirates, fire ninjas, and the Ice King from the trailer hint at an epic conflict. It’s quite possible that Fortnite will add some completely new features and game modes in the coming weeks.
Possibly including PvE boss battles that will lighten up the PvP and promise particularly powerful loot. And the volcano will surely not remain quiet and will continue to shake up the map.
It remains exciting, even if the start of the new season was, in my opinion, very boring and unoriginal.
But enough of my opinion. How do you find Season 8 so far? Is it good that Epic took fewer risks this time or do you wish for more new and original things in the game?
Or have you also landed in Apex by now?
