Fortnite, one of the most popular and successful games on the planet, seemingly disappeared from existence. For nearly 48 hours, the game was seemingly wiped from existence. However, the wait was over when the Fortnite:Chapter 2, a huge update to the game was reveal. While everyone knew Fortnite would eventually come back, it didn’t weaken the effect of this marketing stunt, where both loyal players and players who haven’t even touched the game in months wanted to hop back into this battle royal.

It’s been a couple of weeks since this whole event, and it truly shows that Epic, the developers of Fortnite, haven’t lost their touch. The game has seemingly gotten a second life, with player count returning to all-time highs. It’s an understatement to say Chapter 2 was successful. However, one needs to beg the question: What is it doing right?

With Chapter 2, many things have changed including a new map. Players now not only have a new sense of adventure landing in different spots in the map, but also just have a fresh map in general. It’s undeniably true that most of the games massive revenue is purely from skins. Before Chapter 2, the hype for skins was slowly dying off. New skins were being introduced relatively frequently, but not enough to spark interest among players. Epic has stepped up their game, with new skins almost every other day. Not only that, but they’ve also picked up the quality of their starter pack, for players whose budget isn’t as flexible. Recently, within the past couple days, Epic introduced a feature allowing players to vote on what skin would be featured next- a feature that was in popular demand.

Most notably, there have been serious changes to the progression system, being the battle pass. It’s now easier to progress through the weekly sets of challenges now known as “missions”. Players can go through the tiers of the battle pass faster than before, and with a twist. There’s no advantage on whether you did or did not buy the battle pass. This encourages players who were always skeptical about buying the pass and whether or not they’ll be able to reach the final tiers. Now players can reach the hundredth tier, with some small goodies, and then decide to buy the pass.

There have been some minor additions to the gameplay as well. For the most part the game has gone back to its roots, with most of the additions such as the vehicles, as well as new weapons, have been removed from the game, with the only vehicle being a motorboat for the new waterways in the game. Fishing rods are the only other item added to the game, which when used in specific areas, can lead to the acquisition of better gear, or the new fish consumables to use for health/shield gaining. Over, with the experience becoming simpler, the experience is much purer and more enjoyable.

However, not all people believe Chapter 2 brought nothing but positive changes. Most of the community shares a common opinion about the balance of shotguns in the game. Pump Shotguns have essentially been made obsolete. The Tactical shotgun by far exceeds most weapons in the game, and if you get a hold of a legendary shotgun, you might as well declare yourself the game winner. It can be argued that it’s merely the current meta of the game, but when the tac shotgun is basically superior to its counterpart in every single way, something gameplay-wise definitely needs to change.

Reception around Bassett is positive. Alexis Castillo, 11th, stated that “This new update is way better than the Fortnite we had before, but I don’t like the fact that there aren’t as many legendary

weapons going around anymore, making the game bland.” On the games current meta, he commented “The legendary or even epic pistol is insane, especially close up.”

Overall, the Future of Fortnite looks promising, with seemingly a long future ahead of it, if they can continue supporting the game as much as they ar