Tuesday 22 October 2024

Fortnitemares 2024 - Thoughts on the Halloween event


I have said this before, but I really love Fortnite. Especially over lockdown it really brought me, my sister and my friends together, with us playing it more for social reasons than just to play. The game has in recent years begun to get really lazy with their month long Halloween event they call 'Fortnitemares'. Last year was the most lazy of the events with minimal map changes, the only changes being an added boss fight, pumpkin buckets outside houses, and a hard to spot blood red moon. Thankfully, this years event is the polar opposite, so much change has been made to make the island look spookier than ever.

Changes are across the map, with not only a new location (Freaky Fields replacing the train station POI), but the bright green river in the Underworld section of the map being changed to blood red, many areas covered in mist, Brawler's Battleground reimagined as the vine covered Brawler's Patch, and pumpkins absolutely everywhere, you can barely move for pumpkins of all sizes covering near every location on the map, my personal favourite being the giant statue at Mount Olympus now sporting a gigantic pumpkin head. I also liked the alterations at Restored Reels that now have Fortnite inspired horror movie posters displayed there. Perhaps the best change being the train that travels around the map is now a ghost train, it has a very cool effect.
There are two new boss fights added, with Billy the puppet (from the Saw franchise!) and a very cool original creation - the pumpkin knight themed Ultima Carver.
In addition is Horde Mode once again returning, the same as ever but is still fun to play. This time around you are able to buy attachments for your guns in between rounds. There are also plenty of rewards to unlock by completing limited time Fortnitemare quests.
Included with returning special weapons are a proximity bomb that is a little Billy the puppet on a tricycle, and Leatherhead's iconic chainsaw.

The other big part of the Halloween event is of course the skins. I always get suckered into buying many of the skins and this year there seemed to be a huge amount of both original and licenced skins. There are two more The Nightmare Before Christmas skins (Pumpkin Jack and Sally), Leatherface, Billy the puppet, three Disney villains, some horror Marvel skins (sadly no Marvel Zombies - a missed trick) even a skin for Edward Scissorhands! Original skins are more of a mixed bag, but the previously mentioned Ultima Carver is very cool looking, as was the zombie skin locked behind a Save the World deal. I wasn't impressed that a fun looking bright pink werewolf skin was locked behind a Fortnite Lego battlepass - Lego being the one mode I have zero time for so refuse to get that battlepass just for the skin.

I am a real sucker for spending far too much money on skins over Halloween, but Fortnite is a game I play nearly daily, having sunk over two thousand hours into the game over the past seven years! I will admit I had to dip into my savings this year.
The lack of any new Halloween themed mode for the game would have been disappointing if not for the huge changes made to the map. It really feels like they made a giant effort this year to 'horror' up the map, and I am very much on board for this.

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