The increasingly rare times I get to play online games with friends happen solely because of me, because of my efforts alone, no thanks to the other members of my friends group who usually refuse to abandon the latest Helldivers 2 Major Order to play one of my weird co-op horror games or Sea of Thieves, even for a few precious moments with their old pal Jordan. Multiplayer games these days, particularly those of the live-service variety, have a way of pulling players in and making them feel like nothing else is worth playing, and that's precisely why so many new ones fail, according to one of the foremost authorities on the matter, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.

I can't imagine the amount of people who can relate to my experience with an analog of their own that replaces Helldivers 2 with Fortnite, one of the most enduring live-service games of the last decade. How could you ask your friends to play the criminally underrated co-op horror game Devour when they've almost got the new John Wick skin from Fortnite's latest battle pass? Well, maybe you should get yourself some more adventurous friends, because maybe if more people were willing to try new things, games like Highguard and Concord wouldn't be rotting in the dirt.

"Users tend to enjoy games with their actual friend groups, and it is nearly impossible to move that entire group of friends from an existing game to a completely new one," says Sweeney in an interview with South Korean publication Inven Global (thanks, Automaton).

"Only the massive mega-hits that appear once every few years succeed in this community migration," he continues. "This is the decisive reason why many multiplayer new releases have failed one after another recently. Users have already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and Apex Legends; there is no reason to leave friends behind and go to a new game alone."

There are undoubtedly other factors at play in the failure of any game, and Sweeney cites "many complex factors" including exorbitant budgets and development cycles that have simply become "too long," but multiplayer games specifically face the additional "unique barrier" of friends groups being too stubborn to try new games. In seriousness, the ubiquity of seasons, paid battle passes, and microtransactions is specifically designed to make players feel invested, financially or otherwise, in a specific live-service game and thus less willing to abandon that investment to start fresh somewhere else. That's capitalism in action folks.

Here are the best online games to play in 2026.

After Epic Games spoke heavily about generative AI ahead of yesterday's State of Unreal presentation, Vampire Survivors dev Poncle says it's "reviewing" the Fortnite crossover that was announced during the event.

Earlier this week, Epic Games released a video titled "A Look At Epic’s Art Concepting Process," where it openly admitted that it is using generative AI during the development of Fortnite skins and assets. The video itself features the artists designing concepts for Fortnite before using a Photoshop tool to generate details and speed up the process. Unsurprisingly the video also features a lot of moments where the AI hallucinates and the artist needs to go back and fix the error, which – in the wake of Epic laying off over 1,000 employees earlier this year, and the general cost of everything due to global ram shortages from it being wasted on AI slop farms – feels especially tone-deaf.

A day later, during the State of Unreal presentation, new crossovers coming to Fortnite were announced, specifically Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Control Resonant, Phantom Blade Zero, and Vampire Survivors. However, mere hours later, the Poncle account took to a Reddit post about the collaboration to say the following: "Following today's news about gen AI usage by Epic to create all sorts of game assets, including Fortnite characters, we're currently 'reviewing' our collaboration with Fortnite. We'll let you know if anything moves forward."

From the wording, I don't know that the collab is canceled entirely. Rather, it seems Poncle is looking into whether AI was used to create Vampire Survivors content in the game. Earlier this year, the developers of Phantom Blade Zero spoke out against AI usage, too, and while there hasn't been a similar comment from S-Game, I can see Epic's open use of generative AI tools being a hurdle for some collaborations in the future.

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI

Fortnite Sprites have returned to the battle royale, after previously featuring in several seasons of Chapter 6. There are now a lot more of them than the original Air, Earth, and Water Sprites, and there's a whole new system built around them. You can now extract them from the island to build up your collection and then bring any one of the little helpers into each match from the start. This can get a bit complicated, so here's an explanation of how Sprites work in Fortnite, what their powers are, and how to level them up to Mastery.

Have you found out how to rescue or pet John Wick's dog in Fortnite yet? Our guide will show you the way to unlock this canine companion.

What are the Fortnite Sprite powers?

Each of the Fortnite Sprites gives you a different power up when equipped, and their descriptions are given below:

• Rare:
  • Earth Sprite: You have a chance to find additional rare items when opening chests
  • Fire Sprite: Creates a fiery burst when you deal enough damage to an enemy
  • Water Sprite: Replenish shield while in water for you and your nearby Squad
• Epic:
  • Duck Sprite: Emoting or Jamming replenishes shields
  • Ghost Sprite: Grants cloak for a duration upon reloading
  • Demon Sprite: Siphon some health and shields when you eliminate an opponent
  • King Sprite: Your Pickaxe deals more damage
• Legendary:
  • Dream Sprite: Grants a random item at each level, exploding with legendary loot at Max Level
  • Punk Sprite: Possibly nothing... or infinitely something
• Mythic:
  • Zero Point Sprite: Spawn a Shield Bubble Jr. when you use a healing item on yourself

While most of those are self-explanatory, I go into more detail on the Punk Sprite below. While equipped, your Sprite will level up through opening chests, downing or eliminating opponents, and extracting Sprites, with the effect of their powers increasing up to Level 5.

If you're eliminated in a match then the current Sprite you have equipped will be lost, but you can spend Sprite Dust (earned by extracting Sprites) in the main menu to bring them back – the rarer they are, the higher the cost to recover them. In that menu you can also chose to equip a Sprite before you board the Battle Bus, though any you find during the match can also be swapped in and equipped.

What does the Punk Sprite do in Fortnite?

The Fortnite Punk Sprite description cryptically says it does "Possibly nothing... or infinitely something" – so here's an explanation of its actual power. Firstly, you have to level it up to Level 5 before it will do anything, then from that point on equipping a Punk Sprite has to possibility to grant you infinite ammo! Your weapons will still have the same magazine capacity as usual so you can't fire indefinitely, but reloading won't reduce your overall ammo count, which is pretty handy if you can combine this random chance with a powerful weapon.

How to extract Sprites in Fortnite

Extracting Sprites in Fortnite will add them to your collection, making them available for deployment in future matches and levelling them up in the process, as well as earning you Sprite Dust currency. To do this, you need to go to one of the Sprite Extraction Sites marked on the map above – which can also be identified by beams of light shining up into the sky.

When you arrive at an Extraction Site, hit the button on the control panel attached to the platform to trigger the arrival of an extractor crate – this takes a short time to be deployed, during which other nearby players will be alerted, so watch out for opponents. Once the crate lands, you can approach it and interact to extract any Sprites you are carrying, then interact again if you want to also extract the Sprite you have equipped. A couple of seconds later the crate leaves, and your extraction is done.

As well as adding them to your collection, extracting a Level 5 Sprite will earn you Mastery of it, and each Mastery you achieve will unlock rewards in the Sprites menu. These include Portable Extractors so you can save Sprites without having to go to an Extraction Site, Sprite Dust, XP, and cosmetic items.

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It can be tricky to rescue or pet John Wick's dog in Fortnite because he can only be found in a couple of locations. If you don't know where to go then you're unlikely to stumble upon him by accident. However, if you're a Battle Pass owner then this canine companion is definitely worth tracking down, as setting him free will also add Dog (Pen & Ink) as a sidekick you can bring into matches. To find out more, here's where to find John Wick's dog and rescue him.

Have you worked out how to master Fortnite Sprites yet? We've got a complete guide to extracting and levelling them up.

Fortnite John Wick's dog locations

There are two possible locations for John Wick's dog in Fortnite, and I've marked both on the map above. This spawn will be random in each match, and will either appear in the hotel lobby on the south side of Sinister Strip or in the sewers in the northeast of The Battlewoods. You'll know you're in the right place if you can hear the dog barking when you get close – if you don't find anything there, you'll need to head to the other location instead.

How to rescue or pet John Wick's dog

When you find John Wick's dog in Fortnite, he'll initially be locked in a cage guarded by a couple of NPC enemies who will attack when you get close. Eliminate them and a second wave of goons will spawn, so take them out as well. Once the threat is dealt with, interact with the cage to free the dog and then pet him to receive a selection of powerful weapons and items.

If another player has already completed the rescue, you can still come in afterwards and pet the dog to collect the weapons and items. The first time you rescue or pet John Wick's dog you'll also complete the quest and unlock him as a sidekick in your locker for use in future matches.

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Fortnite Season 3 of Chapter 7, titled Runners, is now underway and there are some significant changes you need to be aware of. The island has shifted around, so you'll need to get your bearings on the new map, while the cute little Sprites running around the place are key to unlocking additional powers that can give you a competitive edge.

As always with a fresh season of Fortnite, we've got a new battle pass to work through with plenty of characters to meet, along with an update to the loot pool so you can get your hands on the latest weapons. If you want to know what to look out for, then here are the biggest changes for Fortnite Season 3 in Chapter 7.

There's a new map, Shattered Coast

Following the epic battle that took place between The Foundation and The Ice King during the Fortnite live event, the island has been fractured to form a new map called Shattered Coast. While some previous POI remain, in either their original or a relocated position, a lot of new named locations have been added including Cluster Coast and Heatwave Harbor. Head to The Zero Point in the center of the map, and you can use it to rift into the sky then glide to distant areas.

Sprites deliver a fresh gameplay mechanic

You can either equip one of the Fortnite Sprites from your collection before you board the battle bus or find them running around the island, and having one active means you can use their special powers to give yourself a boost. This can be anything from increasing your chance of finding rare items to dealing fiery damage with your weapons, and as you use them more they'll level up to become more powerful. Make sure you extract them at some point in the match though, as if you get eliminated while carrying one you'll lose your progress.

The battle pass brings a host of new characters

The Season 3 Battle Pass introduces a selection of fresh Fortnite characters to meet around the island or unlock as skins, including:

• Heatwave PJ
• Cluster
• Dylan
• The Guardian
• John Wick (Pen & Ink style)
• The Voidblade
• Vanguard Slone
• Wolfe

This is a mix of returning characters such as Slone and John Wick with new styles, plus some fresh faces – Cluster the duck is my favorite so far! Customizable Sprite Mechs are available, plus an option to display your Sprite collection. For those who sign up for the Battle Pass during launch week, there are bonus items including the Gold Huntress style for Dylan plus Marbled Speedboat, Venomous Chainsaw, and Gilded Cherub Holster, and further rewards will be available during the season such as John Wick and Dog, Gunglider, Dark Cubic Sneakers, and Blade of the Void.

In the meantime, make sure you rescue or pet John Wick's dog in Fortnite to add his canine companion to your locker as an equippable Sidekick.

There are fresh weapons in the loot pool

As always, a fresh season means there are Fortnite new weapons added to the loot pool to try out, and there are some interesting ones to watch out for. The Chaos Exploder Rifle is an AR that fires explosive cubes, which is great for taking out cover to reach a bunkered-down enemy, while the Seven Sliders let you slide at speed then enter slow time while aiming down sights to line up the perfect shot.

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If you're trying to damage Dark Voyager in Fortnite, it'll likely be due to you working through the recently released weekly highlights quests before the current season comes to a close. Unlike most other quests, this particular challenge doesn't place any markers on your map to tell you where to go, which is why we're here to help. Read on for all of the possible Fortnite Dark Voyager locations, and how to damage him in an attempt to weaken him to complete this quest.

Fortnite Dark Voyager locations

There are three potential Fortnite Dark Voyager locations that we've marked on the map above, and this boss will randomly spawn at one of them. We've found him most often at the Dark Dominion POI towards the center of the island, but if he isn't there then the other locations should be checked – look for the boss icon on your minimap, represented by a skull wearing a crown, to quickly check if they're nearby.

If you see the icon and find the boss, then you can move on to the next step, otherwise make your way to a different location and try again. Bear in mind that if another player has already eliminated Dark Voyager then you won't be able to find them for the rest of that match.

How to damage Dark Voyager in an attempt to weaken him

Once you've spotted the boss, all you need to damage Dark Voyager is a weapon and some ammo – make sure you've got those before approaching, but the boss shouldn't become hostile until you aim a weapon at him or attack anyway. When the fight begins, go for headshots to deal the maximum damage possible, while keeping moving to avoid attacks from Dark Voyager and his summoned drones.

By doing this it won't take you long to rack up the required 500 damage in an attempt to weaken him, which is all you need to do to complete the quest, so you don't have to fully eliminate him. However, if you do eliminate him then you can grab a Legendary Chaos Reloader Shotgun, which is useful for working on several other quests you may have available.

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Final Sentence is the kind of game that only works on PC. It's sort of cheating to say that because it's a typing game, which means a keyboard is about as optional as breathing, but its weirdness and popularity feel quintessentially PC. It's proven so popular, amassing 785 very positive Steam reviews since its April launch, that developer Button Mash is comfortable straight-up telling players, "Don't buy this game" right now – because it's about to go on sale.

I first learned of Final Sentence from a variety of clips floating around online. It's basically a typing class from Hell, and could probably pass for a stage from Squid Game. Following prompts on-screen, you're incentivized to type as fast as you can, or at least faster than the other guy, but too many mistakes will end with "a revolver loaded with a single bullet at your temple."

The horror-lite presentation does a lot of heavy lifting; you are, ultimately, just typing stuff. But Final Sentence enjoyed a nice little boom online a while back – not as a million-seller phenomenon, but apparently it was enough to generate tens of thousands of sales for Button Mash (according to SteamDB estimates and ol' reliable review math), which is more than many games can hope for.

"I want to make a short announcement about the upcoming sale so those who haven't bought the game yet can save a couple bucks for a coffee or a compressed air duster for your keyboard," the dev says in a recent Steam post. "Seriously, that thing is worth buying to clean years of dust and food crumbs out of your keyboard." It's true. Clean your keyboard, you filthy animals.

Granted, the game is only $10 at full price, so any discount isn't going to be ginormous. But savings are savings, and it's a handy heads up. You can, technically, refund a game through Steam and then re-purchase it at a new, discounted price (provided it's still refund eligible), but this kind of thing can save folks some hassle. I could certainly use this kind of warning more often, as buying a game at full price because I want to play it right now seems to be a reliable trigger for a new sale.

I noticed that this post sparked quite some discussion on the Steam subreddit – a stonking 33,000 upvotes, with one user proclaiming it "the nicest thing I’ve seen on Steam." A few users also rightly pointed out that putting games on sale triggers a wave of purchases since few people pay full price on Steam, and in this case, speculate that encouraging folks to hold off could lead to a larger pool of players for the online mode for Final Sentence.

But with an all-time player peak of 335 according to SteamDB, this feels more like a classical typing game with a small battle royale twist. It's fully playable solo and sports a variety of game mode modifiers and leaderboards.

In fact, it was the free Final Sentence demo that went more viral, with a Steam peak of 2,649 players, and that's translated into solid success and reviews for the full game. Our own Ali Jones was among the countless players stomped in the demo, even.

Valve just hiked the 1TB Steam Deck OLED price to just under $1,000.

The first ever Fortnite Community Day is just around the corner, and Epic are pulling out all the stops to make it an event to remember. There are cosmetic rewards unlocked just by logging on, beneficial gameplay modifiers including Double XP and more Rare Blue Chests, fresh content launching in the Shop featuring a much-anticipated arrival, and a big upcoming event reveal. To find out more, this is when Fortnite Community Day is happening and all the rewards you can receive.

When does Fortnite Community Day start?

Fortnite Community Day is taking place on Saturday, May 30 and will start at 6am PDT / 9am EDT / 2pm BST, then run for 24 hours and finish at the same time on Sunday, May 31. There are a couple of events tied to specific times during the Community Day, so from 8am PDT / 11am EDT / 4pm BST there will be a FNCS Major 1 Summit watch party broadcasting live from Dusseldorf, Germany at Legends Landing, and Community Day Power Hours run at 12:30pm PDT / 3:30pm EDT / 8:30pm BST and 6:30pm PDT / 9:30pm EDT / 2:30am BST – more details on those below.

What rewards can you unlock during Fortnite Community Day?

All players who log in during the Fortnite Community Day will automatically receive the Community 'Brella plus Community 'Brella Style and the Silver Surfer Wrap, while Battle Pass holders can also claim the Workplace Foundation Style as seen in this video. During the whole day you'll be able to earn 5x Rivalry Credits and Double XP up to 50 Levels, while finding more Rare Blue Chests, Golden Fireworks Pistols, and player voted weapon unvaults, and Twitch Drops will be on so you can watch participating streamers to earn a fresh Pickaxe, Back Bling, and Wrap.

More new content will be available via the Shop, where you'll be able to purchase the long-awaited Typical Gamer skin and cosmetic items, as well as the Indigo Kuno skin that was previously a PS Cup exclusive from December 2020 (thanks HYPEX). As mentioned earlier, there will be two Power Hours during the Community Day, where players will spawn with one of four Overwatch-inspired Exotic loadouts for some legendary showdowns during those 60 minutes.

Last but not least, the Community Day will also start the build up to the next Fortnite live event, with the launch of The Showdown: Epilogue and a reveal of the end of season event. Make sure you log in during May 30, as you don't want to miss any of this!

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One Star Wars fan has given us all a full tour of the Din Djarin and Grogu homestead, and now I'm wondering if Mando is accepting applications for roommates.

The homestead was introduced at the end of The Mandalorian season 3, when Din Djarin and his newly adopted son, Din Grogu, settled down on Nevarro. In the show, though, we only got to see the house from outside.

The duo return to it in The Mandalorian and Grogu, and this time, while we get to see inside, it's only a glimpse before Grogu is forced to flee (with his Anzellan pals) and Mando literally blows up the roof to get to bounty hunter Embo.

But, thanks to the Fortnite collaboration, we can see the entire household. In the video, which you can watch below, we can see the grounds outside, including two blurrgs outside in a callback to season 1. The N-1 starfighter is also parked nearby, and there's a target range behind that. Round the front, you can even see Mando himself sitting next to the front door and enjoying some downtime, in a reference to the season 3 finale.

Inside, the house is simple, but very cozy. There's a bed against the wall and what looks like a smaller bed for Grogu on the floor beside it. On the other side of the house, there's a fireplace – with Mando's blaster mounted in pride of place above it – and a small kitchen and dining area. The whole interior is pretty spartan, but there are some rugs for decor. Check it out below.

Honestly, the whole place looks adorable, and I hope someday – in a potential The Mandalorian season 4 or somewhere else – we get to see Mando and Grogu spending a peaceful stretch of time in their homestead together.

"We wanted to build something that, yes, was a gaming experience, and you drop in with, I think, up to [12 players], and it's a fun adventure, but the backdrop is a very immersive one," Jon Favreau told us of the Fortnite collaboration. "And you could choose to go on the adventures within it, but you could also choose to explore. And we even developed other areas that we had either explored [or] thought about, so that you can actually explore and go throughout that planet."

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in theaters now. For more, check out our The Mandalorian and Grogu review, or our roundup of how to watch the Star Wars movies in order.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Watch Party Island is here, as promised, and the Stars Wars collaboration with Fortnite has shifted into an entirely new gear. I'd previously argued that I didn't think anyone was prepared for the amount of Star Wars that was about to hit Fortnite – and that very much applies here as the new island is more than just a bunch of set dressing around the edges of a screening experience.

But that screening experience is absolutely the initial draw, and everyone knows it. The Fortnite island has a message from Jon Favreau on top of a 10-minute sneak peek of the upcoming Star Wars film several days before it's actually in theaters on May 22. If you're the kind of Star Wars fan that just has to see the movie as early as possible and you're not a reviewer or critic, this is your shot. Additionally, Favreau will also have a Q&A airing in the Fortnite island's amphitheater on May 26.

When I say it's "more than just a bunch of set dressing," I'm speaking from experience. Ahead of the new Star Wars Fortnite island's launch, I was able to play around in and explore the world of Nevarro created by Fairview Portals and Beyond Creative. Collecting bounties, fighting off enemies at a moment's notice, playing the role of pit fighter, and even hopping on a speeder briefly at one point. And, of course, helping Grogu.

After spending some time on Nevarro, I was able to speak with some of the developers at Fairview Portals to better understand the work that went into the experience – and working with Epic, UEFN, Favreau, and more.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

GamesRadar+: How do you balance bringing people who maybe are not familiar with the show or the upcoming movie, while also people who are very intimately familiar?

Jeff Brown (games director at Fairview Portals): Huge consideration from us and the whole team, including Jon. First of all, we identified that the Watch Party was a great opportunity for us, and having that around the time of the film launch, but also we wanted to make sure that that was expanded. Epic's done other watch party islands, but they're just not as expansive; there's not as much going on. So we saw the opportunity to kind of really dig in. And Jon proposed Nevarro for many reasons, of course, in terms of us being able to build something that's that's authentic, but also it was important to have one of everything, something for everyone. So we can go on quests, you can just get right into the action, you can go watch the previews for the film. It was always important for us to be able to include lots of variety to help folks that aren't as tuned into Fortnite.

GR+: As you're building this, is there anything like, 'Oh, we've got to have this. This is a part of this that has to be present'?

Matt Burdette (lead artist at Fairview Portals): I mean, we're building this under Jon's roof. So we have complete unfettered access to everything we could have needed to do this, like build a pinpoint-accurate Nevarro – we had blueprints, we had set photos, we had concept art. Pretty much anything at all we needed, we had available to us, which basically left no excuse to not build a one-to-one of some of these environments. And we also were pretty clear up front to say, 'If it exists in the show, if there's a canonical version of this that's in the show, we're gonna do it.' And we pretty much did, so.

GR+: …How big is it? I played what I thought was a good chunk of it, but I could tell there was definitely even more than that. Like, there's a lot there on the island.

JB: It's a good, complete representation of the city of Nevarro, with some changes for gameplay. But it's about everything that you would expect to be in the city. And then we knew that we had to have the shipyard, and, of course, the homestead, so it just kind of expanded from there. It's a celebration of the show, so it was important to include the things that everyone knew of it.

GR+: When you were initially visualizing what this would be, was it always sort of this, or was there an earlier version of this that you iterated from?

JB: It definitely evolved a little bit over time. Nevarro was always the thing that we wanted to do; it just had to be scaled appropriately. So I think when we first went in, there were a lot of ideas for stuff that we could do, and that ultimately had to be pared down to something that fit within the timeframe. And that was a process, working with Epic, working with Andre [Balta, senior director at Epic Games] just to find the essence of what we should do.

There was so much that we could have done, but I feel like we've kind of clawed back a lot of things that were in the original spec. So there's a lot of things that – and little details, little Easter eggs – are in there too, that we managed to put in.

GR+: What's the most difficult thing about building a Fortnite creation like this?

JB: That first part's really easy for us. Matt and I have been working together for a long time in full-fat Unreal Engine, and this is our first project in UEFN, which there's a learning curve, as anyone that's worked in this flavor of Unreal would tell you. I think that we've dealt with everything in a good way.

There's a limiting factor there, but it's also sort of a creative box that you learn to stay within, and you end up having to come up with a lot of creative solutions, which we have, and honestly, teaming up with, Beyond Creative, they've been great, and we've learned a lot about how to how to develop for the engine.

GR+: And how does adding Star Wars to the mix complicate all that, if at all?

MB: Well, I mean, you just have to make sure that you're, again, sticking to the authenticism of it. You can't phone it in like. You really have to stick to what makes Star Wars Star Wars. You have to pay attention to the details. You kind of just have to treat it as gospel. That requires a pretty enormous amount of vigilance, but it's like the proof is in the pudding as you do that, you really can feel it come out as you continue to build it.

JB: Yeah, there's spaces that don't exist in Nevarro either. So that was kind of a big challenge. But luckily, we had Doug Chiang [SVP and executive design director at Lucasfilm] as a resource, who was incredible, and he would come in and give us a lot of advice for the areas that Matt was building that are specific to the island that you wouldn't see in the show or the film.

MB: Doug Chiang had some fantastic feedback for us. Every time we met with him, the needle moved forward significantly. So it was great having him with us.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Watch Party Island is now available in Fortnite. If you're interested in more about the movie, you can check out all of our previous coverage of The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The Mandalorian and Grogu will soon be hitting the big screen as the first Star Wars movie in seven years – but it has also arrived to Fortnite.

Thanks to The Mandalorian & Grogu Watch Party Island, you're now able to see the first 10 minutes of the new film and hear from director Jon Favreau.

That's not all you can do in the collab, either. You can also explore Nevarro, hang out with Grogu, accept quests from IG-11, and take on the role of a Deputy to battle Imperials.

"Oh, we were very involved," Favreau tells us when we meet with him in London to discuss the movie and the collaboration. "I saw the opportunity of the partnership between Disney, Lucasfilm, and Epic as an important one. And the company that I work with, Fairview Portals, which deals with gaming and also deals with immersive and deals with new technologies, new media, as it relates to storytelling, we saw an opportunity to really lean into this.

"We'd already been working a lot with Unreal and with Epic, because even the Volume that we created for The Mandalorian was using assets from Unreal Engine," he continues. "We use a lot of Unreal Engine in the development on the front end of the process, with both the film and the shows. We use game development technology as part of a workflow that borrows a tremendous amount from animation. So, before we ever roll camera, we build out this experience."

As Favreau explains, it was all about crafting the most immersive, true to Star Wars experience possible. "We saw an opportunity, now that we have the opportunity to do a partnership with Fortnite, to take those assets, and create as close to an authentic experience of immersion that we could on the planet of Nevarro after season 3," he explains. "And so we pulled in all of our art department, we pulled in Doug Chiang, we pulled in Andrew Jones, the entire team that works on the films and the shows.

"And we wanted to build something that, yes, was a gaming experience, and you drop in with, I think, up to [12 players], and it's a fun adventure, but the backdrop is a very immersive one," he adds. "And you could choose to go on the adventures within it, but you could also choose to explore. And we even developed other areas that we had either explored [or] thought about, so that you can actually explore and go throughout that planet."

According to Favreau, this might only be the beginning, too. "Clearly, the scale is not one to one, but the finishes, the look: it was an opportunity to begin exploring what I think is going to have greater potential, which is not just using these tools for a backdrop of a gaming experience, but also to start to create immersive environments and communal environments," he says.

"And so this was a first step of what I think is going to be a much larger project when it comes to that partnership. We're also going to be showing 10 minutes exclusively with an amphitheater that we created on Nevarro before the film comes out."

This May 26, you can return to the amphitheater for a fan Q&A with Favreau, too. And, after 20 minutes in the island, you'll unlock the Mandalorian Sanctuary Loading Screen, while the Mandalorian Pen & Ink Outfit is available in the Shop from May 21. This is the Way...

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in theaters this May 22. While you wait, check out our guide to all the other upcoming Star Wars movies for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store, or see our roundup of all the ways to watch the Star Wars movies in order.

Overwatch fans are lamenting that Fortnite is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the hero shooter better than Blizzard itself is.

Earlier this week, the Overwatch 10th Anniversary Event kicked off in-game, and very quickly, fans discovered that it kinda stinks. Most of the new cosmetics are the Decennium Skins, which are purple and white recolors for the original cast. But at the same time, the Fortnite x Overwatch collab also kicked off this week, which brought Tracer, Genji, Mercy, and D.VA to the game as skins, as well as making some changes to battle royale mode with Tracer's guns, Mercy's Staff and a number of POI's taking the form of iconic Overwatch locations.

Over on Reddit, a post laments that Fortnite's crossover does Overwatch more justice than the game's own devs, with responses saying "I'm actually more excited to play Fortnite's Overwatch mode than the actual Overwatch." Another adds, "Epic just made Blizz look absolutely pathetic." Meanwhile, another puts it simply: "When the crossover vastly outshines the anniversary…"

It's even inspired some more conspiracy-minded posts, with one user theorizing: "The Anniversary event is so hilariously bad that I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the Epic deal: push the playerbase over to Fortnite until the end of the season." In the same vein, another says, "I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did this on purpose; make a lackluster 10th anniversary event in their own game and let Epic do the heavy lifting with a Fortnite collab to rake in profits that way," and that it's "kind of a shame they'd put so much stock into another game rather than their own honestly."

Truthfully, I highly doubt the event is intentionally bad, but I can definitely understand how underwhelming some are finding it. Although, to Overwatch's credit, it did just relaunch with multiple new characters earlier this year, which is a pretty significant thing for a big milestone year.

Fortnite's most embarrassing cause of death has been removed, but Epic Games has managed to balance it shockingly well.

Now that a few Overwatch characters have stepped into multi-brand-verse Fortnite, it's time for a decade-old myth around Tracer's butt to flop in with them.

Fortnite welcomed a handful of Overwatch heroes this week - Tracer, D.Va, Mercy, and Genji included - as well as some iconic series weapons, but one particular asset is getting all the attention online.

"NO SHOT THEY UN-NERFED TRACERS BUTT," one viral social media post says alongside a screenshot of Tracer's model in the evergreen battle royale game. "Finally, Fortnite with the courage to do what [Blizzard] wouldn't. The world needs heroes."

Tracer butt discourse in our year of 2026? Is the first place my mind went to upon seeing all these online reactions because, as chronically online Overwatchers might remember, the game's first ever controversy, referred to in some online circles as Tracer's butt-troversy, has been floating about almost as long as the game itself.

The tale well-known to greyed Overwatch sweats kicked off 10 years ago when a widely-circulated forum post accused a Tracer victory pose of turning the chirpy, aloof hero into "another bland female sex symbol."

Even at the time, heated debates began popping off almost immediately between fans who loved Overwatch character designs for the fan service and those who loved the designs because of how they represented what a hero could look like. Until original director Jeff Kaplan stepped in and replaced the pose, that is: "We want everyone to feel strong and heroic in our community," he said at the time.

Blizzard's updated pose rang truer to Tracer's personality, but also spawned myths that traveled far and wide, alleging the devs 'nerfed' the hero by making her butt smaller. The butt-troversy even followed Jeff Kaplan to his promotional run for The Legend of California, his new game, where he debunked the myth once and for all (or so we thought.)

"We actually didn't nerf Tracer's butt," Kaplan clarified a few weeks ago. "It stayed exactly the same. That was a good repose I just had."

Butt sickos who had spread a half-truth on the internet for a decade were living through a Mandela Effect, it seems - except this one is a little more resistant to dying, based on plenty of newly-viral posts about Tracer's butt-troversy.

"Super sad and disappointing" Overwatch 10th Anniversary Event leaves players reeling: "Blizzard did us dirty"

In a win for clumsy players everywhere, Epic Games is removing death by fall damage from Fortnite, although the alternative isn't exactly a buff either.

I'm sure its a universal experience for anyone who has played Fortnite that you'll be playing a match and going on an absolute tear through the battlefield. '10 kills on the board right now, just wiped out Tomato Town' level domination, only for you to make one wrong move, fall off of a cliff and instantly die, ruining everything. While multiplayer games in general are hotbeds for frustration, there's a special type of frustrating that comes with the dreaded fall damage death, and clearly Epic Games knows this, as it's killing off that type of death entirely.

As reported by Fortnite leaker HYPEX, Fortnite is removing fall damage deaths from its regular Battle Royale mode, and – the actually good mode – Zero Build. Given that part of the strategy in build mode is to destroy opposition structures and give them a big fall to contend with, this could have a massive effect on the game's balance. Although thankfully, Epic has seemingly balanced it so that falling during battle is as good as death anyway.

As the leaker notes, fall damage will now send your character into a "splat" animation, which – as the name implies – splats them onto the ground, with a delay before they get back up. Your health and shields will also be fully drained too, leaving you with 1hp to survive with.

I'm actually all for this, and think it's a perfect example of a good way to rebalance the game, effectively removing the frustration of dying to fall damage when wandering around the map by giving you a chance to recover, while also not removing the threat of dying to fall damage when you're fighting someone.

Epic knows everyone's afraid "AI is going to take all our jobs," but Fortnite dev insists the goal of AI "is to make us more efficient."

The Fortnite x Overwatch collab is launching on May 14, 2026, bringing a whole host of new content from Blizzard's long-running hero shooter to the Battle Royale, Zero Build, Reload, and Blitz. You can recruit your favorite allies to fight alongside you in new Overwatch-themed landmarks across the map, and fresh gameplay mechanics are also on the way. We're currently waiting while the Fortnite servers are down for this update to be deployed, but once it goes live, here is everything you can experience when the worlds of Fortnite and Overwatch collide.

What's included in the Fortnite x Overwatch collab?

As you can see from the image above, there's lots of new additions being made for the Fortnite x Overwatch collab. Look out for new themed landmarks around the map, including Hanamura, Busan Drum Pavilion, King's Row, and various Watchpoints. King's Row is particularly important for an upcoming gameplay addition, which we'll have more on later.

You'll be able to pick your main from the Shop, as from May 14 you can buy the Tracer, Mercy, Genji, and D.Va outfits along with their corresponding accessories and matching Lego styles. Some of their classic weapons are being added to the loot pool, so watch out for Tracer’s Pulse Pistols and Mercy’s Caduceus Staff. There will also be new characters you can recruit as Overwatch allies in-game to back you up in the fight, and while only Genji and D.Va have been confirmed so far there will no doubt be more available to meet and team up with.

Finally, there's a new gameplay mechanic on the way, once players on Team Ice King complete enough Fortnite Rivalries to progress the Showdown Leaderboard to Milestone 1. This will unlock the Overwatch Payload Anomaly, which spawns a Payload each match at King's Row Tower and awards Overwatch loot to all players who escort it home. Team Foundation will also unlock the Overwatch Dropship at Milestone 1, but further details for that have not yet been revealed.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Video game production is a big, expensive process that now tends to involve a bunch of people working across a whole lot of different studios. According to Stephanie Arnette, who serves as senior external development manager on Fortnite, AI isn't coming to kill jobs, whether that be at Epic itself or for its co-development partners.

"Epic has been exploring different AI tooling that we can use to help support our games," Arnette said at a recent Gamescom Latam panel attended by GamesRadar+. "I know everyone's biggest fear is, 'Oh my god, AI is going to take all our jobs.' That's not our goal. The goal is to make us more efficient."

Arnette suggested that if "the thing that takes you 10 hours to do" suddenly "doesn't take you as long," that's a compelling use case for AI. Part of that "tooling" is being explored "in the art realm as well," she added, but didn't detail exactly what shape that might take.

Regardless, Arnette insisted that Epic is leading the charge on whatever AI is implemented in Fortnite's development process. "There really is no opening for a partner to try to put their AI info or tooling into ours," she explained, "because it's such a massive, massive company, so it would always be from our direction outward, and not the other way around."

This notion that AI is going to be used to make things more efficient for developers is one we've heard over and over again – including just today, when Sony detailed how Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered made use of a new AI animation tool. We're already seeing games that have been built using AI tech coming to market, and while many players are holding firm against obvious AI-generated content in their entertainment, those quieter uses of the tech are difficult to pick out.

Of course, the actual power of AI tech to make developers "more efficient" is difficult to measure, and the real question of whether those efficiency gains will be used as justification for layoffs remains to be answered. After all, you're not technically being replaced by AI if your boss decides that with all these new efficiencies that your co-worker can do your job too.

Take-Two CEO says if AI replaces anyone, it should be Elon Musk after his claim GTA 6 could come from gen-AI before Rockstar: "The richest guy on Earth, wouldn't that be job number one for AI to take?"

As I creep through a derelict Star Destroyer, simultaneously looting and avoiding Darth Vader, I jump when I turn a corner and see the red of his lightsaber reflecting off the dead steel all around. Minutes before, I'd been battling against Imperials to hold bases on a frozen planet that was never explicitly called Hoth but wasn't not Hoth either. After escaping Vader, I go on to build a small-but-respectable droid business on a sandy planet.

All through Fortnite.

The current evolution of popular games of a certain size goes something like this: release, get popular, make brand deals, release creative tools, make more brand deals, launch a platform, make even more brand deals. Relatedly, Epic Games' Fortnite is now adding the ability to use Star Wars assets in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and Fortnite Creative to create all kinds of Star Wars-inspired islands, like the ones mentioned above.

Use the Force (in UEFN)

"Since 2019, Fortnite has been a gateway into the Star Wars galaxy," says Andre Balta, senior director at Epic Games. "What started off as limited-time events grew to seasons and in some cases, a complete takeover of Fortnite with Star Wars lore. Our team decided to take all those amazing weapons, assets, vehicles, and characters, and expose them to our Fortnite development community – and the response has been incredible."

"It was pretty clear from the start when we announced that every Fortnite creator has their own Star Wars story they want to tell," continues Balta. "It's been awesome to see the passion come through, and this will lead to Fortnite having the largest collection of official Star Wars experiences for players to enjoy."

None of this is exactly news – Epic Games announced the curated Star Wars assets and tools back at the beginning of April – but now it's officially here. But alongside hundreds of these Star Wars-tinged Fortnite islands that people have been crafting in anticipation of launch, Epic Games and Lucafilm have partnered with three different creators in order to "set a really high bar with three exemplar islands," according to Balta.

Those three are:

• Galactic Siege from JOGO Studios (island code: 5003-9856-3648)
  • "Fight in large-scale PvP class-based battles with 10v10 combat across iconic Star Wars planets."
• Escape Vader from Beyond Creative (island code: 7285-4185-5428)
  • "Hide, run, and try to survive in this 4-player co-op game where you attempt to escape the terrifying Sith Lord, Darth Vader."
• Droid Tycoon from FOAD (island code: 7865-8305-9184)
  • "Build and customize droids using authentic Star Wars blueprints, manage your workshop and factory systems, and unlock rare components and special missions."

Ahead of their release, I'm able to play around in each island during an event hosted by Epic Games. This is me doing more than getting my feet wet; I've not messed with any of the UEFN Fortnite islands previously, so it's more like diving straight into the deep end – three times.

"Interactive entertainment is rapidly becoming one of the defining forces in how audiences experience stories, and Disney is fully embracing that evolution," says Sean Shoptaw, executive VP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. "Games offer a uniquely powerful way to deepen engagement, expand our worlds, and connect with fans in real time. As this space continues to grow, we see extraordinary potential to elevate Disney storytelling in ways that are innovative, social, and built for the way people play today."

Shoptaw's not exactly wrong, despite the vested interest, about gaming's evolution. It's not hard to look at the rise of Roblox and user-generated content (UGC) more broadly and see that there's a sea change in progress, if not already complete. Less and less emphasis and money seems to be getting put behind a more traditional development path while more of that is refocused on simply giving players the tools to amuse themselves.

After playing a good bit of Droid Tycoon – basically a business sim of building droids, selling droids, and having them complete tasks in order to earn money over time – following both Galactic Siege and Escape Vader, the overwhelming impression I'm left with is that a lot of effort has gone into simulating all sorts of genres and experiences using the same box of building blocks. It's impressive, but something is lost when everything's painted using the same brush.

These are all probably great examples of the sort of work you can do within UEFN, but it's hard to escape the feeling that it's largely simulacra; ghostly imitations of larger-scale experiences and games. If you squint, Galactic Siege is basically "what if we made Battlefront in Fortnite" and Escape Vader borrows mechanically from its peers while throwing a coat of Star Wars paint on top. If your only game is Fortnite, however, and you have no further point of reference, I bet they'll really hit a sweet spot.

Droids you're looking for

"We've been in UEFN since the day it was announced at GDC 2023 and been shipping games," says Kevin Marciano, co-founder and CEO of the game studio Future Trash – which creates under the name FOAD in Fortnite. "We are a team on the platform known for crafting our own original IP, and that's kind of like our reputation and the types of games that we ship. Over time, we started to build relationships with the developer community and with Epic, and so we were very fortunate enough to be considered for this opportunity, and as lifelong Star Wars fans, saw this as one of the coolest things we could work on, and so we dove right in."

FOAD is an interesting case, because the name is actually also associated with Future Trash's eponymous "flagship IP," which it had been working on prior to getting involved with UEFN. The playtest is still available on Steam, if you're looking to try out a new "online competitive platformer battle royale party game," but the vertical slice apparently struggled to break through. While the team ultimately took a step back to work on all this Fortnite stuff, the goal appears to be to eventually return to the "core game" as well.

If the new Star Wars Fortnite island is any indication, it would appear that FOAD is in a good place overall, so it's not shocking that the OG FOAD has taken something of a backseat. If you're one of three exemplary pillars for something this big, you're clearly doing something right.

But… why droids? I had to know. Given everything that Star Wars encompasses, lasers and Jedi and starfighters and so on, why tie your reputation to droids? The answer is fairly nuanced, but there's also a short version.

"We like droids," says Scott Ulliman, creative director and co-founder of Future Trash aka FOAD. "A lot."

"Also, part of what we are good at is creating assets," he continues, "and we wanted to do something that we thought was going to be a little less likely to be made a bunch of times, and something we felt passionate about. When it comes to the kind of games we're interested in making and playing – you know, creature, companion, sidekick type stuff – the droids felt like a really good fit for that."

If you're wondering why creating assets would be such a strong skill to have, given that Epic Games is explicitly providing a whole bunch of them in the Star Wars toolkit, so did I. According to Ulliman, there are no droid assets; FOAD made all of them itself for Droid Tycoon. All 42 unique droids, along with 10 more that are planned for further updates.

It's a whole lot of droids to make, especially for launch, but when I ask why FOAD bothered to make so many droids, Ulliman says that it just sort of… happened.

"It was a snowball," he admits. "We wanted to make 20. We thought with the game we were building, 20 was a really good number. As we started building them, and we started playtesting, and you see them, you know, once, twice, three times in the game – the most consistent feedback we got internally and from Epic, and we agreed, is, 'We want more droids.' So we kept making more droids."

"It's made the game significantly more interesting," he says. "There's a lot more to unlock and see. You get to learn a lot more about Star Wars. We got to do some really niche droids too, really weird ones that are all canon and haven't been seen a lot, and Disney was very welcoming for us to build some of those out. So honestly, it was one of those things where we knew it was about the droids, but actually seeing them animated in the game just became this thing where we all wanted to see our favorites in there and other people's favorites. And there's a lot of favorites for droids."

Fortnite is currently available on… pretty much every platform. The Star Wars UEFN islands mentioned above are available on May 1. While you wait, maybe take a peek at our ranking of the best Star Wars games.

When it comes to bugs and glitches in Fortnite, Epic is pretty ruthless about what gets priority, according to CEO Tim Sweeney. There's a queue of importance, but the low-priority items get wiped periodically, something that's prompted one of the leads on Rust to provide an alternative methodology.

On Twitter, Sweeney responded to a report that Epic just deletes the backlog of bug reports, even when entries haven't been looked at yet. "We prioritize reported bugs," he says. "We fix them in priority order. At the bottom are low-priority, low-impact bugs. We find the cutoff point where fixing those bugs is less valuable to the game than other things, and we drop them."

He calls this "normal software development," and clarifies this never includes things players are experiencing to a widespread degree. "Bugs that many players experience and that affect the quality of the game are not those abandoned low-priority, low-impact bugs," Sweeney states. "They are higher priority bugs the team is tasked with fixing. When that takes time, it is because they are hard to track down, fix, or deploy."

One of the responses comes from Alistair McFarlane, COO and company director of Facepunch Studios, the team behind Rust, who says they keep reports going back years. "Our backlog on Rust is usually several hundred of low priority bugs, many are bugs to us rather than players, but we never deleted them," he tweets.

"Generally we have cleanup sprints to tackle them, allow QA to fix them, or they're a good starting point for new staff to resolve and becomes familiar with the project during their starting period," he adds. "A lot of our low priority bugs can date back years, it's a burden on QA and the whole team to know if its still broken or fixed in passing."

He finishes by saying he "can see the logic in deleting them," however, he'd "rather have them logged than forgotten." There's logic both ways, but when it comes to remedying issues within a game, I can imagine having the full extent of your bug reports is more helpful than not. That's easy to say though, when something like Fortnite must have an avalanche of them on a regular basis. Either way, as long as things get fixed, that's the most important part.

"Fortnite's cultural moment is starting to fade," games analyst says amid mass layoffs, and its downturn is part of the "erosion of American leadership" in video games

If there's one thing to take away from the last few years in the games industry, it's that making multiplayer games is really difficult, and PUBG's IP franchise director, Taeseok Jang, says that he feels sad when other multiplayer games don't succeed.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ during an exclusive Krafton press tour, the PUBG boss says he has friends that worked on Concord and Highguard. Concord launched in August 2024 and lasted just two weeks before Sony pulled the plug, while Highguard managed to keep going for just over six weeks after its January 2026 launch.

However, Jang tries to see these failures as learning opportunities. "When you think about making new games, it's really hard to succeed every time," he says. "So, I try to put myself in their positions and try to think, 'oh, what could I have done better in that situation?' That's how I try to think more."

He adds: "I try to kind of think of my putting myself in their shoes, try to have that perspective, and try to learn from it."

Jang also specifically mentions thinking about community messaging, which feels especially relevant in Highguard's case after Wildlight Entertainment's odd decision to debut their shooter at the 2026 Game Awards before going silent almost right up until launch over a month later – an incredibly bold strategy for a debut game.

However, Jang is also no stranger to short-lived games. PUBG: Blindspot – a top-down tactical shooter – was shut down permanently at the end of March following a stint in early access that lasted just under two months.

With Krafton broadly making use of early access as a way to validate its game ideas, Jang says that Blindspot's development "reinforced how important it is to rapidly prototype in small teams and incorporate player feedback into the development process". He's not the only supporter, either, as InZoi's boss strongly recommends early access to other developers, too.

InZOI boss says the success of Crimson Desert and other Korean games is "really nice to see" but Asian developers "still have a lot to learn from Western developers."

Few multiplayer games have come close to success and longevity that PUBG: Battlegrounds has enjoyed. Milling through the crowds of PUBG's ninth anniversary fan event at Seoul University, excitement for the game in South Korea is palpable. Thousands of fans are treated to developer Q&As, a magic show from a well-known Korean illusionist, and even a performance from K-Pop band AllDay Project – a recent PUBG collaborator.

Despite being staggeringly popular in east Asia, PUBG – the battle royale that started it all – has fallen out of favor with Western players. Neither PUBG: Battlegrounds director Taehyun Kim nor PUBG IP franchise director Taeseok Jang, are afraid to admit it. But, speaking to GamesRadar+, the pair share ambitious plans to meet the new era of games-as-platforms head-on.

Platformer puzzle

Nine years after its viral launch, PUBG: Battlegrounds continues to draw in hundreds of thousands of players each day. It's an extremely impressive feat, but major hurdles lie ahead, including a diminished Western audience, drawing in the next generation of gamers, and an online entertainment landscape shaped by Fortnite, Roblox, and social media platforms. A behemoth like PUBG has little choice but to follow suit if it's to continue serving chicken dinners across the globe.

With that in mind, Krafton's goal is to turn PUBG into both a "content platform capable of delivering a wide range of gameplay and entertainment experiences" and a "long-lasting global cultural icon" as Jang puts it. Kim elaborates that this is effectively a two-pronged approach involving expanding the game with new modes from partner studios and user-generated content (UGC), while also leveraging collaborations to dig into that cultural aspect – he teases that a music collaboration with "a major Western artist" is on the horizon, for example.

Given that the success of Epic Games' battle royale pivot is almost entirely owed to PUBG's viral popularity, it's both ironic and hardly surprising that PUBG Studios is now looking to Epic for growth strategies. What is surprising is that, while Jang understands Fortnite is technically a competitor to PUBG, that's not how he views things.

"I don't really like that term [competitor], so I don't use it often," he says. "It doesn't matter if it's a game company or publisher, if they push a really strong experience to the audience, I have big respect for them, and I feel like we go on that journey together as a partner."

Despite being focused on the future, Kim also admits that PUBG Studios is a bit late to this 'platformization' trend. "We actually wanted to go with [platformization] earlier, but things have been delayed," he says. "But we're working hard to catch up."

Mira-marred

The starting gun for this catch-up effort is a PvE mode called Xeno Point – a co-op shooter that sees a team work their way through an alien-infested version of the Miramar map, with some rogue-lite mechanics thrown in for good measure. Looting gear ripped from PUBG's sandbox is how you'll slay and survive in Xeno Point, but you'll lose it all on death, save for permanently unlocked skills and Supers.

I got to play a preview of this mode while visiting PUBG Studios and, unfortunately, wasn't exactly thrilled by it. That might have been because I was given a souped-up account with almost all the Super abilities and Blue Chip Skills unlocked and upgraded, but I can't say the enemy or objective design helped either. Fighting waves of exploding spiders and aggressive humanoid aliens in a specific area while a progress bar filled didn't feel particularly fresh, with access to the best gear making objectives trivial, even on a tougher Tier 3 run.

My team then faced a bit of friction fighting the end-of-sector boss but were able to melt it in a hail of bullets once we understood the mechanics. This was much unlike the Tier 4 boss which comprised shooting glowing weak spots while avoiding area-of-effect attacks. The chances of getting revived if knocked down were next to nil thanks to the boss's near-constant barrages that made standing still for even a few seconds fatal, resulting in a sort of death spiral that eventually ended our run for good.

PUBG's core makes Xeno Point easy to pick up, and a good way to warm up or cool down between battle royale chicken dinner attempts. But Kim says that the hope for Xeno Point is for it to be "a natural entry point for players who are not previously familiar with PUBG." I agree that it's a low-stakes way to show a player the ropes of PUBG: Battlegrounds before diving into battle royale, but I don't see Xeno Point being exciting enough on its own to draw new players in.

Beyond Xeno Point, PUBG will be getting a Payday mode in May, made in collaboration with Swedish series developer Starbreeze Studios. I didn't get to preview this, but Kim offered that it's the "same [Payday] gameplay implemented into PUBG", revolving around high-tension heisting. Again, I'm sure PUBG's core can mix well here, but since it sounds like more of the same Payday action, I'm wondering why it exists outside of a bit of PUBG and Payday brand cross-pollination.

Looking further ahead, Krafton's platformization plans extend to the official release of the UGC hub in August, as well as plenty of improvements and new features to the core battle royale mode and console experience. With PC platforms more popular than PlayStation and Xbox in South Korea, meaningfully getting into the more console-oriented Western market seems like a crucial goal for the PUBG team. In the past, Kim admits, Krafton has been unable to capture "what Western users want".

But if you're after a return to the PUBG of old when it was a bit slower-paced, the team isn't looking back. "We don't want to revert it back to the early PUBG days. That's not the plan," says Kim. "But we don't think that's necessarily bad because we're still keeping the core gameplay elements."

Embattled Royale

As well as pressing on with the evolution of PUBG: Battlegrounds, PUBG Studios is working on a slate of separate games set within the same universe, with a shift towards rapid prototyping and validation using early access. We've already seen this in action with PUBG: Blindspot, which was released into early access and closed within two months.

It comes across as cutthroat to kill a game after such a short time, but Jang says Blindspot's development helped them see the value in experimentation and remaining agile. "It also reinforced how important it is to rapidly prototype in small teams and incorporate player feedback into the development process", he says.

With numerous PUBG projects on the horizon, including the extraction shooter spin-off PUBG: Black Budget, there also seems to be a risk of cannibalization, but Jang isn't worried. "Rather than competing with one another," he says, "we aim to share capabilities and experiences to create new gameplay experiences that players can enjoy."

This year will be pivotal for PUBG: Battlegrounds. The next six months will usher in huge expansions and changes for the game that I'm still uncertain of, based on what I've seen so far. Looking longer term, I also have to wonder if following in Fortnite's footsteps is even sustainable after recent layoff woes.

However, Kim remains optimistic and open-minded, saying that there are "many opportunities ahead". "There are a lot of ideas in the back of my head right now," he says. "This is the first time we are attempting UGC, so I think we're going to have to see how it goes."

A mysterious Steam user has over 13,000 pairs of PUBG pants worth just 3 cents in his inventory, and players can't figure out whether it's hoarding or money laundering

Fortnite's not dead, but it's suffering a "downturn" in engagement that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has blamed for recent layoffs affecting over 1,000 employees. According to one industry analyst, Epic's declining fortunes mark one example of a broader collapse of "American cultural dominance" in video games.

"It's in the nature of empires to destroy themselves," NYU professor and games industry researcher Joost van Dreunen dramatically begins in a new analysis. As he explains, "the news of Epic Games' latest layoffs adds to the mounting evidence of the real-time collapse of American cultural dominance in interactive entertainment." As a result, it has become "painfully clear that, at long last, Fortnite's cultural moment is starting to fade."

American developers now "face a bevy of strategic and economic challenges." Demand for games has diminished since its COVID peak, yet prices to enter the hobby continue to rise, further driving down consumer interest. Van Dreunen argues that while many of those factors are global, some are specific to the US, as much of the burden for the cost of recent tariffs falls on the shoulders of American business and buyers.

He also cites expensive H-1B visa fees, saying that the $100,000 cost of these visas "virtually ensures that publishers will relocate talent elsewhere. It makes the US less competitive and causes it to miss out on tax revenue from high-earning employees." These cost factors mark a notable "contributor to the erosion of American leadership" in the game industry.

Meanwhile, game companies based in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are all finding more success. "Publicly traded game makers in Europe (+60%) and Asia (+26%) have, on average, performed notably better than their American counterparts (+18%) in 2025," van Dreunen says.

"One major contributor now showing its true impact is the encroaching, disproportionate power wielded by platform holders," van Dreunen says. "Over the ten years leading up to 2025, platform revenue, from app stores, console marketplaces, and digital storefronts, jumped from $14 billion to $41 billion, a 191 percent increase. By comparison, game publishers saw their revenue rise from $65 billion to $128 billion, a more modest 98 percent increase. Over the course of a decade, gatekeepers have captured value at nearly twice the rate of content creators."

Epic, of course, fought a protracted, expensive legal battle in an effort to loosen the power wielded by platforms like Apple and Google. "Despite winning several important concessions," van Dreunen says, Epic "has spent a fortune on lawyers and forfeited even more in lost opportunities. Before its removal from the App Store, Fortnite was generating an estimated $1-$2 million per day on iOS, or roughly $500 million annually. Even after Apple's 30 percent cut, that's $375 million in net revenue, every year, gone. Five years later, that totals close to $2 billion."

I have to wonder, though, if the decline of a game like Fortnite is inevitable in itself, regardless of external economic factors. Business doesn't demand profit, which Fortnite does generate at a remarkable rate, it demands growth, which is impossible to sustain in perpetuity. At some point, every live-service game will decline – you'll eventually run out of new players to court, and old players will eventually decide that they've had enough.

Fortnite helped spark a live-service gold rush, and while there have been hits in the space, names like Concord and Highguard litter an increasingly larger graveyard. Even if the American live-service empire is the first to fall, I'm not sure the global game industry can stave off the force of entropy forever.

Fortnite producer says "we cannot even fully understand what kind of impacts this will have" amid mass layoffs at Epic Games: "What comes next is very hard and painful."

Fortnite Rivalries are a new mechanic introduced to the battle royale this season, which flags certain opponents as your Rivals and rewards you for eliminating them within a set amount of time. Keep eliminating Rivals and the credits you earn can start stacking up, allowing you to purchase powerful weapons or handy boosts and gear in Fortnite Season 2 of Chapter 7. This also feeds into the Showdown leaderboard, both in-game and online, so we're here to explain how that and Rivalries in Fortnite work.

What are Fortnite Rivalries

Fortnite Rivalries put you head to head with another player in the same match, marking them at the top of the screen and giving you a 5 minute countdown to find and eliminate them. Their general area will be marked with a red circle on the map, but once you get to the same location you'll have to pinpoint them yourself. Eliminating a Rival yourself will instantly give you 10 Rivalry Credits, however if another player eliminates them they'll drop a Rivalry Contract at their location – if you manage to collect that before the timer expires then it will still count as a Rivalry won and award the 10 Rivalry Credits, but if another player picks it up then they become your new Rival.

For the initial part of the season, players will automatically be assigned a Rival near the start of each match, though to get more you can interact with one of the Rivalry Screens such as the one shown above, found where there are crossed swords icons on the map. As well as starting new Rivalries here, you can interact with the side screens to spend your Rivalry Credits on weapons and perks – that currency carries over between matches, so you can save it up and spend whenever you like. Some of these rewards are only unlocked once you get a certain number of Rivalry wins, but here's a summary of what you can pick up:

• Rivalry Weapons:
  • Upgrade Weapon to next Rarity – 20 Rivalry Credits
  • Random Legendary Weapon – 50 Rivalry Credits
  • Random Exotic Weapon (Requires 20 Rivalry Wins) – 80 Rivalry Credits
  • Random Exotic Weapon (Requires 60 Rivalry Wins) – 80 Rivalry Credits
• Rivalry Gear:
  • Self Revive Device – 10 Rivalry Credits
  • 5,000 XP (Requires 10 Rivalry Wins, limit of one per day) – 10 Rivalry Credits
  • Mark Enemies on Damage (Requires 40 Rivalry Wins) – 40 Rivalry Credits
  • Infinite Slap (Requires 80 Rivalry Wins) – 50 Rivalry Credits

How does the Showdown leaderboard work in Fortnite

For each Rivalry Win you earn in the battle royale, you'll add progress to the Showdown reward track for either Team Ice King or Team Foundation, depending on who you chose at the start of the season. As each new milestone is hit on either track, that reward will be unlocked for all players, so you won't miss out if the other team is unlocking items. The rewards revealed so far are as follows:

• Act I
  • Team Ice King
    • Ice King's Gauntlets
    • Slapperoni Pizza
    • Stabilize the Rift Anomaly
    • Enhanced Harpoon Gun
    • Ice King's Vault Key
  • Team Foundation
    • Seven Power Gloves
    • Seven Cannon
    • The Foundation's Rift Rifle
    • Golden Fishing Spots
    • Seven Compound Vault Key (which might be used to open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite)

There's also an online Fortnite Showdown leaderboard running on the official website, where you can complete challenges to earn in-game cosmetics. These are revealed weekly, though they roll over so you don't have to complete them in the week they launch, and you can earn the following if you connect your Epic account:

• Connect your Epic account to earn the "Original Rivalry" Spray
• Week I: Eliminate 50 players to earn the "Rivalled Runners" Kicks
• Week II: Survive 30 Storm Circles to earn the "Goofyfoot Flail" Pickaxe
• Week III (unlocks April 2): Earn a Victory Royale to earn the "Enticing Pie" Emote
• Week IV (unlocks April 9): Win 15 Rivalries to earn the "Eagle's Talons" Pickaxe

In addition to those rewards, if you place high enough on the overall leaderboard then you'll have a chance to win physical prizes too! Those are broken down as follows:

• Global Leaderboard Top 5 each week: GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition
• Global Leaderboard Top 20 at end of challenge: PlayStation 5 Console
• Each Team Top 100 at end of challenge: Team Foundation, Team Ice King, or Team Creators Apparel
• Each Team Top 500 at end of challenge: Official Fortnite Ice Prince Keychain

Get the lowdown on which Fortnite new weapons have been added or unvaulted for the current season.

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A couple of days ago, Epic Games laid off over 1,000 employees, with CEO Tim Sweeney blaming "the downturn in Fortnite engagement" – and now, remaining developers are sharing their own reactions to the mass layoffs.

Fortnite gameplay producer Robby Williams is one such dev, taking to an online thread with his thoughts – and it's admittedly a tough read, considering the situation at hand.

"Hey. End of day and I've had some time to process," he writes. "It's been a brutal day at Epic today, and I'm absolutely devastated by the loss of some of the most insanely bright and talented people I've ever had the honor to work with or even just around."

Williams continues, with a heartfelt message about his former coworkers: "I appreciate the outcry of support and empathy that I've seen from the community today, and I just ask that you please show as much love as you can offer to those that were impacted. None of them deserve this and it's not at all reflective of their work or their impact."

He then alludes to the future – one that won't be easy for the remaining staff at Epic Games.

"What comes next is very hard and painful," the dev admits. "Our teams will have to pick up the pieces and try to keep moving forward, but we cannot even fully understand what kind of impacts this will have on the game for the rest of the year and likely beyond."

It's especially difficult to gauge, likely, with Sweeney himself having said Fortnite was suffering from a dwindling community. But, as Williams concludes, folks will do what they can now.

"I'll continue to do my best to keep making the best game for you, and I'm confident that my peers feel the same, but please be patient with us as we navigate this tough time and do our best in spite of these truly gut-wrenching losses."

As for what the Epic Games CEO has said, aside from his initial words on the matter, he stated the layoffs will result in "a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks" – which, uh, doesn't exactly help.

According to Sweeney, the company's downsizing "wasn't a performance-based 'rightsizing.'" Regardless, I'd say it stings all the same – and the impact layoffs like this have on the games industry as a whole… isn't great.

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on"

Yesterday, it was announced that Fortnite developer Epic Games is laying off over 1,000 employees, and it's now come to light that one of those affected is the character art director who created the model for Jonesy, easily the most iconic and recognizable character in the battle royale.

Vitaliy Naymushin has worked at Epic Games for over 11 years, and you need only look at his Artstation page to see what an impact he's had on Fortnite, with models for notable characters like Ramirez and a "female constructor" we'd later know as Penny. Most importantly, shared in July 2017, is the "the Male Soldier model I created for Fortnite" – Jonesy – based on concept art by principal concept artist Ben Shafer.

Per his LinkedIn page, dating back to 2015 when he was a senior character artist, Naymushin "established the 3d style for Fortnite characters," and "created majority of the original cast of characters (Jonesy, Ramirez, Penny etc)," but now, he's looking for work.

"Well this is weird," he begins on LinkedIn. "After 11 years I find that I no longer work at Epic. It's been a wild ride, lots of ups and downs. Seeing Fortnite from pre launch to today and being a part of making that happen was an experience of a lifetime."

He acknowledges that there are "lots of similar posts out there" from other affected employees, adding: "I hope that everyone impacted by the layoff lands on their feet." Naymushin extends his wishes to those still working at the company, too: "Best of luck to all the folks remaining at Epic."

Fellow Epic Games devs have been wishing Naymushin well, too. "Fortnite looks like Fortnite because of you Vitaliy," comments creative cinematic director Gavin Moran, who's "sorry to hear" that the art lead is "no longer at Epic."

"It's been so awesome to work with you," writes aforementioned Jonesy concept artist Shafer. "I can't believe you got swept up in this. You were like the glue for our team. Appreciate you man and you will be missed big time! Thanks for everything."

"You're an amazing leader and truly a legend to the games industry," says Epic art director Dakota Sager-Leonard. "I'm so sorry you were affected. Wishing you all the best moving forward, you've made a huge impact to Fortnite and I know you will continue to do incredible things wherever you go."

Epic kills 3 Fortnite modes amid mass layoffs, including the Rocket League devs' Mario Kart-like which helped kick off the multi-game metaverse era to begin with.

Today, Epic announced that it's laying off more than 1,000 employees. Alongside that news, the studio also revealed that it's ceasing support for three Fortnite game modes in 2026: Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage. Rocket Racing is particularly notable, since it was one of the key pillars of Epic's original push into a multi-game metaverse.

"We've built a lot of Fortnite modes, and in some cases we failed to build something awesome enough to attract and retain a large player base," the company says in its announcement, adding that it's "grateful for everyone who played."

Rocket Racing will go offline in October 2026. This mode, created by the Epic-owned Rocket League studio Psyonix, is an arcade racing game that blends Rocket League's high-flying cars with a competitive Mario Kart sensibility. It seemed like the obvious highlight when Epic first unveiled Fortnite's multi-game future back in 2023, but that wasn't reflected in the player counts, which quickly dwindled in comparison to other modes and user-created options.

One of the other key pillars of that 2023 launch was Fortnite Festival. While Epic says "music remains a major part of Fortnite" and the mode as a whole will continue to get updates, the PvP Festival Battle Stage is going offline as of April 16, 2026.

And there's another mode dying on April 16: Ballistic. This is a 5v5 FPS that transplants Counter-Strike's ultra-competitive vibes into the Fortnite ecosystem, and this shutdown seems to be the one the community is taking the hardest. You can just look at the comments under Epic's announcement to see the community's outcry – many believed Ballistic could have had a robust future with more support from the devs.

But with 1,000 fewer people at Epic, it's unclear what the future of modes outside of the core Fortnite ecosystem will ultimately be. Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney blamed a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" for the layoffs, although he stopped short of detailing steps the company is taking to realign the battle royale.

Speaking more broadly, Sweeney had this to say about the future of Fortnite: "What we now need to do is clear: build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events."

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on."

Epic Games, the multi-billion dollar corporation behind Fortnite and one of the most successful games in the world, is laying off more than 1,000 employees. CEO Tim Sweeney blames a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" for the move, which he attributes to both "industry-wide challenges" and factors "unique to Epic."

"Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees," Sweeney says in a memo to the company, which was also shared with the public. "I'm sorry we're here again. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place."

The news follows a notable price hike for V-Bucks a few weeks ago, which Epic framed as a way for players to "help pay the bills" for the mega-popular battle royale. Clearly, the publisher figures those bills are still too high.

Epic last laid off 830 people in 2023, which represented around 16% of its workforce at the time. On today's cuts, Sweeney says affected employees "will receive a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay, with more based on tenure. We’re also extending Epic-paid healthcare coverage. For example, in the U.S., they’ll receive paid coverage for 6 months. We’ll also accelerate their stock options vesting through January 2027 and extend equity exercise options for up to two years."

As Circana senior director Mat Piscatella was quick to note on Bluesky, Fortnite was played by 35% of PlayStation players and 31% of Xbox players in the US through February 2026. That made it the biggest game on both platforms for the month. But the engagement downturn is real: "The avg PS player engaged with Fortnite for 16 hours in the month (vs 21 last Feb), with Xbox players averaging 15 hours (vs 19 last Feb)," Piscatella says.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, Fortnite led in US Feb Monthly Active Users across both PlayStation (35% of actives playing) and Xbox (31%). The avg PS player engaged with Fortnite for 16 hours in the month (vs 21 last Feb), with Xbox players averaging 15 hours (vs 19 last Feb).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-24T15:08:37.371Z

Sweeney says that "some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges: slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics; current consoles selling less than last generation's; and games competing for time against other increasingly-engaging forms of entertainment."

He acknowledges that Fortnite remains "one of the most successful games in the world," but says the company has "had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season," and is still in the "early stages of returning to mobile." He also says that "being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers."

Sweeney's not specific about what those bullets are, but it's tough to imagine he's referring to anything other than the company's ongoing battles with entrenched digital storefronts, which has seen Epic go to court with Google and Apple while attempting to wrest a sliver of Valve's PC gaming pie.

"Since it's a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren't related to AI," Sweeney also acknowledges. "To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can."

Epic Games defends Fortnite's controversial V-Bucks price hike, insisting it's in "direct correlation to the operating costs" and teasing "amazing things" are coming that'll make you "understand what's been going on."

Fortnite Chaos Cubes have started appearing across the island, having been dropped by the Dark Voyager as he moves around the area. It's up to you to gather them so you can track his movements, but this is more than just a piece of lore as you'll also earn a considerable amount of XP by finding all of these collectibles in Fortnite Season 2 of Chapter 7. To save you having to search for them yourself, we've done the work and pinpointed where you need to go, so here are all of the Chaos Cubes locations in Fortnite and the rewards you'll get for finding them.

Where are the Fortnite Chaos Cubes

At the time of writing there are a total of 40 Chaos Cubes in Fortnite, which can be found in the locations marked above. These are divided into sets of five in each of the following POIs:

• Dark Dominion
• Battlewood Boulevard
• Painted Palms
• Wonkeeland
• Sus Studios
• Humble Hills
• Fore Fields
• Latte Landing

When you get close to one of the Chaos Cubes locations, you'll hear a distinctive chime emanating from it to help guide you towards its position. As you work your way though collecting them, you can check the Path of the Voyager section of the Quests menu and highlight a POI to show green ticks on the map for the Chaos Cubes you've already collected, to help identify any that you're missing.

What are the rewards for collecting Chaos Cubes in Fortnite

Finding Chaos Cubes in Fortnite is particularly lucrative, as you'll earn 4,000 XP for each one you collect, with a 20,000 XP bonus for each POI set of five you complete. More of these collectibles are due to be added on April 1, and once you use them to find 70 Chaos Cubes in total you'll earn a massive 80,000 XP bonus overall!

Get the lowdown on how to open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite, and see which Fortnite new weapons have been added or unvaulted for the current season.

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In a peak crossover, friendslop climbing hit Peak now has skins in Fortnite. But before you decide to make your character an orange, round-headed boyscout, you should know the price is almost three times a copy of the multiplayer game.

No, seriously, it's all in the V-Bucks. A Twitter user did the math: The Peak Scout skin will run you 2,000 of Fortnite's fictitious currency. That's $22.40, by the current rate for V-Bucks, or 2.8 whole copies of Peak on Steam, which costs $7.99 as standard. The easiest option for buying it is actually slightly more expensive, as there's a 2,400 V-Bucks pack available for $22.99.

If this skin became available before the recent mark up on virtual dollars in Fortnite, then it'd cost $17.80. That's only 2.2 copies of Peak, something I'm sure we can agree is a much less egregious proposition. Capitalism!

Epic Games recently revealed that Fortnite was going to become a bit more expensive, introducing the first mark up in several years. In-game currency is pricier across the board, something the company maintains is necessary for the planned expansion of the already mammoth shooter in the months and years ahead.

While this is all to be expected in an age of industry instability and increased emphasis on games being live-service, it doesn't make seeing it spelled out any easier. It's amazing that a game like Peak is being exposed to so many people through Fortnite, but seeing the price, and knowing that Aggro Crab and Landfall won't be seeing any of it, definitely makes it bittersweet.

"That's actually a slap in the face to the Peak developers," says one response on Twitter. "Like: 'Hey, we at Fortnite feel our skin of your character is worth well over double the price of your fuck ass game.'"

That said, I'm kind of here for Scout beaming Goku across the island. It's all about the nonsense idiosyncrasies, really. Peak.

Baldur's Gate 3 writer says the RPG's reputation system exists because Larian can't just let players "break" party members: "We would be working on the game forever"

Working out how to open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite is a conundrum that has left many players stuck, as this location deep within the triangular base was a great place to stock up on rare loot during the previous season. However, now that Fortnite Season 2 of Chapter 7 has rolled around something has changed, which means the method that previously unlocked this door is no longer available. To find out what the current situation is, here's everything you need to know about opening the Fortnite New Sanctuary vault.

Where is the Fortnite New Sanctuary vault

The Fortnite New Sanctuary vault location is found, rather unsurprisingly, in the New Sanctuary POI to the southeast of the island. Head to the huge triangular base belonging to The Seven that dominates this area, open one of the blast doors around the edge to get inside, then work your way down to the bottom level using the various ascenders and stairs. When you get down there, head towards the north point of the triangle and you should find a huge blue vault door.

Can you open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite?

During the previous season, there was a big red button nearby that you could hit to open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite, but that has been removed in Season 2. If you approach the vault door you can hear the sound of Epic Chests behind it, implying that the loot we enjoyed at this location previously is still there, however it is currently inaccessible as there is no known way to get the vault open at this stage.

The last reward item on the Act I Showdown reward track for Team Foundation is a Seven Compound Vault Key, and it is widely speculated that it is this, once unlocked, that will allow players to open the New Sanctuary vault in Fortnite. While unconfirmed, this does seem like the most likely outcome, so we'll have to wait and see what happens once enough progress has been made to unlock it. Remember – the Showdown Milestone rewards unlock for everyone, so you don't need to be part of Team Foundation to benefit.

Make sure you take a look at the Fortnite new weapons that have been added or unvaulted for the current season.

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Developer Aggro Crab is turning friendslop into friendwine and joining Fortnite for a Peak bundle no one expected.

"PEAK IS COMING TO FORTNITE ON MARCH 21st," Aggro Crab announces alongside a teaser on YouTube, which shows off the suddenly incredible length of the Peak characters' legs… and a concerning lack of divorced plushie Bing Bong.

One YouTube comment with nearly 2,000 likes says, "If there is no Bing Bong back bling, we're rioting."

"Give us a BingBong backpack and my life is yours !" promises another fan. But try not to make any promises yet – Aggro Crab clearly anticipated players' sick need to trade their souls for Bing Bong long ago. They remind fans on Twitter that they created a mockup of Bing Bong the Fortnite pickaxe back in 2025, after one of the battle royale's major leakers FireMonkey observed a friendslop buffet: "Only in Fortnite can you wear the REPO Semibot Skin with an Among Us on your back while holding the Stop Sign from Lethal Company."

Fortnite developers "had a better vision" than theirs for Bing Bong, Aggro Crab now says. On YouTube, they respond to that first popular comment on the topic and provide what may be a back bling tease, saying, "I can't snitch, but you'll find out March 21."

The Peak developers are more forthcoming about, as they write in another YouTube comment, their shockingly "LONG" new Scouts. To fit Fortnite player models as skins, Peak's Scouts have apparently undergone painful leg lengthening surgery, and they look huge.

"That's crazy," summarizes another fan comment. "I'm immediately buying that."

Peak co-creator loves the term friendslop, because "what's so bad about hanging out with your friends and playing games like this?"

Fortnite Season 2 of Chapter 7 is now underway, so it's time to get involved in the Showdown and see what it had to offer. There have been some interesting tweaks made to the Battle Pass, which is understandable given the recent significant changes to how V-Bucks are valued in Fortnite, but alongside the usual updates to the map and what guns are available there's also a completely new mechanic for taking down specific opponents. To find out more, these are the biggest changes in Fortnite Season 2 of Chapter 7.

The Battle Pass is changing

Following the recently announced changes to V-Bucks value, the price for the Fortnite Season 2 Battle Pass has dropped to 800 V-Bucks – though you'll only be able to earn up to 800 V-Bucks back during the course of the season, so you can no longer increase your balance overall. For the first time there is a bonus incentive for players who purchase the Battle Pass from launch through March 26, unlocking the Stealth Tech Foundation style and accessories.

Of course, there are still plenty of rewards to unlock by progressing through the Battle Pass. We have The Rock returning as The Foundation, along with a remix of the Jules skin first seen in Season 3 of Chapter 2, plus it's hard to miss that Bugs Bunny features prominently!

There's also the Ice Prince sidekick, some Ice King's Frostwalkers kicks, and more to collect. The full list of Battle Pass characters is as follows:

• Exalted Ice King [instant unlock]
• Squibby
• Lady Windfrost
• Dasha
• The Foundation (Reforged)
• The Order (Reforged)
• Elite Jules
• Bugs Bunny [level 85 required]

There's a new Rivalries system

To shake things up in Showdown there's a new Fortnite Rivalries system, where you challenge a Rival during a match and earn credits for eliminating them. You also need to pick a side between Team Ice King and Team Foundation, with your rival eliminations counting towards progress in the showdown between them. Make sure you also sign up for the Global Leaderboard Challenge online, where you can earn cosmetics and potentially win big prizes.

The map has been updated

As is usual for the start of a fresh season, the map has been updated with some new POIs to visit around the island. The main ones to be aware of are Squibbly Shores to the west, Frigid Fortress to the north, New Sanctuary to the southeast, and Dark Dominion right in the middle.

There are new guns to try out

Again, it wouldn't be the start of a fresh season without a selection of Fortnite new weapons to add to your arsenal, and the loot pool has been significantly refreshed for Season 2. In addition to new guns such as the Vector 7 DMR and Chaos Reloader Shotgun, there are also some more practical items such as Overdrive Grenades that grant temporary speed boosts to anyone they hit and a Skyline Deployer to shoot out a zipline that anyone can then use... or destroy.

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V-Bucks are getting pricier, as Epic Games announced Fortnite's currency will go up in cost on March 19. This is, according to Epic, in order to "help pay the bills," a fair reason, if for the fact Fortnite is one of the best video games ever and Epic's a massive company. Nonetheless, the company's holding the line, per comments from lead developers.

"It's pure operating costs of running a business, and that was the main push," Andrea Balta, senior director of ecosystem growth at Epic, told The Verge during GDC 2026. "We're going to continue to, as a business, focus on creating amazing games and gameplay, but the price hike is a direct correlation to the operating costs."

Balta states the public statements thus far are "pretty accurate." Steve Allison, general manager of the Epic Games Store, suggests there's considerable expansion in the pipeline. "We're just investing in growing the ecosystem a lot," he states.

Allison notes there are “amazing things that'll be rolling out in the next, like, six-to-12 months that, I think, when you look back, you'll understand what’s been going on." As of March 19, $8.99 will only get you 800 V-bucks instead of 1,000, as it is now, and packs at all subsequent price-points have been downsized accordingly. The reception has not been positive.

Fortnite joins RuneScape in raising prices, as the fantasy MMO just announced a rise in subscription costs across the board, including a phasing out of legacy pricing for longtime subscribers. Epic's been more lenient than Jagex overall, since RuneScape last saw subs become more expensive in 2024, whereas V-Bucks went up in 2023.

Still, two-to-three years makes for what feels like a short turnaround. Fortnite's delivered some big swings of late, the collab with The Simpsons being a prime example. More of that in future seasons may take the sting out of this out, but for now, it's a bitter pill for many.

Arc Raiders dev uses clip of FPS streamer Shroud summing up "game dev in a nutshell" to reinforce how Embark "failed" during development: "We really did – twice."

Fortnite Save the World free to play has been almost a decade in the making, since this mode launched as a precursor to the battle royale we all know and love in 2017, and discussions around it becoming free to play go back as far as 2018! That never materialized and ever since players have had to purchase Save the World, initially as a standalone product then later as part of Item Store bundles, but that's all about to change. Here's everything you need to know about Save the World going free to play in Fortnite, and what rewards you can earn by pre-registering now.

When and where can you play Fortnite Save the World for free?

Fortnite Save the World launches as a free to play title that everyone can access on April 16, 2026, at which point it will no longer be locked behind purchasing a game pack with it included as an extra. Until then, new purchases of Save the World have been paused as of March 11, though if you're a current player you can still access it during this time.

When it releases, you'll be able to play Fortnite Save the World free to play on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, and various cloud gaming services. This means Save the World will not be available on the original Nintendo Switch, or smartphones and tablets (including cloud gaming), so you won't be able to experience it on those platforms.

Also, to be clear – the original Founders who invested in the initial Early Access will still continue to earn V-Bucks by completing Daily Quests, Mission Alerts, Storm Shield Defense Missions, and existing Challenges, but other current and new free to play participants will not receive any V-Bucks by playing Save the World.

How to get Fortnite Save to World pre-registration rewards

There are a number of Fortnite Save the World pre-registration rewards that you can earn, simply by visiting the Save the World site and hitting the big yellow REGISTER button towards the top of the page. Once you've connected your Epic account and completed that process, you'll be eligible to receive the following rewards if the community goal milestones are reached:

• 300,000 registered players – Save The World Jess Banner
• 700,000 registered players – Kyle's Construction Spray
• 1,000,000 registered players – Snowstrike Hero

Note that Snowstrike Hero is a reward specific to Save the World, so you won't be able to use that character in the battle royale or other Fortnite experiences. Assuming these milestones are hit, the rewards will be given to first-time players after completing the opening tutorial, while current players will received them in advance.

To thank existing players for the last nine years of holding back the horde, those who have previously played Save the World will also receive the following items on April 16:

• 1x Hero Supercharger – Promote a Hero beyond Level 50
• 1x Weapon Supercharger – Promote a weapon beyond Level 50
• 1x Trap Supercharger – Promote a Trap beyond Level 50
• 5x Survivor Supercharger – Promote Survivors beyond Level 50
• 1x Hero Recruitment Voucher – Recruit a Hero of your choice
• 1x Weapon Research Voucher – Unlock a weapon of your choice
• 10,000 Gold – Spend in the Exchange for valuable items

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Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games has caused waves among fans after revealing plans to raise the price of V-Bucks and leave optional purchases like the Battle Pass with far less value – but the creators stand strong behind their decision to increase the pricing.

Andrea Balta, senior director of ecosystem growth at Epic Games, speaks on the matter in a new online post, replying directly to a disappointed player.

"Seeing comments like 'the Item Shop is the main focus instead of the game' hits me really hard," writes Balta. "It's not the impression we want to give, nor how we focus our efforts. We put a ton of work and care into Fortnite's gameplay, and this focus is only growing."

The dev then concludes, "Paying the bills frees up our teams to continue driving stories and building stuff you love." Unsurprisingly, fans aren't exactly convinced – in fact, many seem angry.

"Oh, I feel sooooooooo sorry that your poor little billion-dollar megacorporation can't afford to keep the lights on," reads one reply. "You must be struggling to feed your families with those 10 billion dollars you made last year. Should we start a charity fund?"

It's an especially charged response, all things considered, but the community seems distraught all around. A separate thread outlining how "the Battle Pass will now cost 800 V-Bucks and award 800 V-Bucks for completing it" instead of 1,500 with bonus rewards included shows as much.

One person asks, "Why they acting like they're poor and in desperate need of money?" Another adds, "This is genuinely one of the worst changes they've done."

Elsewhere, somebody argues in their own post that, "Epic posted this at the WORST possible time, right as so many people were leaving the game, bored of the season, right at a low point anyway, they decided to drop a real bomb and make everything so much worse. It's almost as if they're trying to kill off the game at this point."

Comments see folks agree, with a person dubbing the price increase a "diabolical fumble this season."

Another player replies directly to the sentiment that Epic somehow needs help "paying the bills," exclaiming, "'Help pay the bills'" – MAN FUCK UR BILLS WHAT ABOUT OURS?"

It's certainly not looking good in the Fortnite fandom right now, that's for sure, and people aren't sure how this will work out when the next season starts. As one user says, "Doing this just BEFORE a new season is CRAZY. All your good faith is already gone."

Here's hoping Epic Games listens to its community and considers some changes – changes that don't see prices increasing anymore, that is. It's evident players aren't satisfied with how things are turning out now, even if the devs argue it's necessary.

Searching for something else to play other than Fortnite right now? Be sure to browse our roundup of the best Battle Royale games out there.

You know, even extremely profitable companies are struggling in the current economy. Just think of poor Epic Games, faced with the prospect of continuing to run one of the most financially successful games in the world. What choice does it have but to ask Fortnite players to pony up their fair share, shouldering the burden through increased V-Bucks prices and less valuable Battle Passes?

"The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills," Epic says in its announcement. I'm not sure playing the economy card is going to resonate much with Fortnite players, given that the company was valued at $22.5 billion when Disney invested in it in 2024.

Whatever the reasons why, V-Bucks are getting more expensive as of March 19. The most basic pack, priced at $8.99, used to get you 1,000 V-Bucks, but will now offer only 800. You'll still at least get 20% back through Epic Rewards if you make your purchases through the Epic Games Store or the company's mobile and web payment system.

Here's how the new prices shake out (Epic has only confirmed what the changes look like in USD):

• $8.99 Pack – previously 1,000 V-Bucks, now 800
• $22.99 Pack – previously 2,800 V-Bucks, now 2,400
• $36.99 Pack – previously 5,000 V-Bucks, now 4,500
• $89.99 Pack – previously 13,500 V-Bucks, now 12,500
• Exact Amount Pack – previously ~$0.50 for 50 V-Bucks, now ~$0.99

Regular Battle Passes are going down from 1,000 V-Bucks, and will instead cost 800 V-Bucks going forward, but they'll also offer less value. You'll be able to earn 800 V-Bucks from progression, still enough to purchase the next pass, but there will no longer be any V-Bucks-based bonus rewards (you could previously get a maximum of 1,500 V-Bucks back from a Battle Pass if you got all of the currency in the bonus rewards, too).

Meanwhile, other passes are also decreasing in price. When the next OG Pass lands, it'll cost 800 V-Bucks, down from 1,000. The Music Pass and Lego Pass are similarly going from 1,400 to 1,200 V-Bucks next go-round.

And yes, this all affects Fortnite Crew subscriptions, too. Instead of 1,000 V-Bucks, the subscription will now net you just 800 per month. You certainly shouldn't expect Item Shop prices to get any cheaper here, either – after all, Epic Games has clearly fallen on hard times, just like the rest of us. So relatable.

Fortnite nonetheless remains one of the best battle royale games you can play today.

Eight years ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduced battle royale to the series with its Blackout mode, a formula Warzone vastly expanded over the years. Still, some players continue to crave the more straightforward battle royale experience offered by the original Blackout, and Warzone's Black Ops Royale is poised to deliver exactly that.

Black Ops Royale launches on March 12 at 9pm PT, or March 13 at 12am ET, and as the devs explain in a lengthy blog post, it's "an original Blackout-inspired Battle Royale with no Loadouts, no Gulag, and no Buy Stations."

The Gulag has been replaced by Redeploy Tokens, which essentially serve as extra lives, and Redeploy Towers, which teams can capture to revive their allies. Similarly, instead of loadouts and buy stations, you'll scavenge all of your loot in the classic battle royale way, rushing to map locations to grab the good gear before opposing players do.

You'll be able to grab especially high-value loot from Cradle Breaches, which essentially replace the Zombie Zones of Blackout. During the match, a bomber will drop a hallucinatory gas canister that'll make you see a bunch of presumably fake zombies and certainly very real high-tier loot caches. Each Cradle Breach only lasts for a limited time, so you'll have to contend with both the zombies and other players gunning for that loot as you rush for the best gear.

It seems that Black Ops Royale will launch as an all-quads affair, so smaller squads and solo players are out of luck, but the blog notes that that's just "to begin with." This isn't an LTM, so it seems that the mode is here to stay, and it's very possible that more squad sizes will become available in later updates.

The YouTube comments on the announcement trailer keep calling this "Blackout 2," and the devs are pretty explicit about the mode's inspiration. "There are clear influences from the core Blackout experience – like bullet drop and weapon handling, as well as the armor system and use of the Trauma Kit – capturing the Blackout pacing, traversal, and combat feel in a modern way," they explain in the announcement.

"This isn't a remake; it's a unique experience that pays homage to the Blackout core gameplay while keeping the flow of a match feeling right for Call of Duty: Warzone players," the devs say. Clearly, those players are more than ready for a mode exactly along these lines.

Here are the best Call of Duty games of all time.

Who needs Kingdom Hearts 4 when we have a potential Fortnite collaboration, am I right? Square Enix and Disney's ongoing action-RPG franchise is making its way to Epic's sandbox, per a prominent leaker, while news on Sora's next full-scale adventure remains scant.

According to Adira, a Twitter account that's been responsible for a number of leaks of late, says that Keyblades are incoming. They state the collab is "in development" and will arrive in the coming months, with no further details.

This is the second time Kingdom Hearts and Fortnite have been mentioned in the same breath, with another leaker claiming the two were going to collaborate two years ago. That rumor turned out to be untrue, and it's always worth taking these claims with a pinch of salt, but this partnership is certainly believable.

For one thing, Fortnite's been absolutely gunning through major properties for the last while. The Simpsons, South Park, and Kill Bill are just three recent examples of the pieces of media that have been absorbed into the battle royale's tapestry. Secondly, Disney and Epic Games have been working more closely together of late.

We've already seen Marvel and Star Wars get ample space in Fortnite. It seems practically inevitable that Kingdom Hearts would eventually join them in some capacity. There have been intermittent rumors of Final Fantasy becoming part of the shooter, too, but those haven't borne fruit yet. Should this happen, I'd expect that to change sharpish.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Sora, Riku, or Kairi beaming players across the island before 2026 is done. Maybe that's the Kingdom Hearts 4 we deserve.

"I have zero news" about Kingdom Hearts 4, Kairi actor clarifies after fans were convinced they might have revealed a spoiler for the upcoming RPG: "I totally understand the confusion."

An official Fortnite Honkai Star Rail collaboration is happening soon, which is exciting news for fans of the gacha space RPG. Although details are currently rather scant, we do know that two significant characters will be making the leap across to the battle royale, so you'll see them leaping into action from the battle bus in the near future. For the information we have so far, here's what you need to know about the Honkai Star Rail x Fortnite collab.

If you're looking for a boost, then make sure you've redeemed the latest Honkai Star Rail codes for Stellar Jade, Credits, and more!

When does the Fortnite Honkai Star Rail collaboration start?

Thanks to a teaser posted on the official Fortnite X account, we know that the Fortnite Honkai Star Rail collaboration starts on February 26, 2026. This short video shows the twin swords of Kafka and Blade crashing into a planet, before revealing the Fortnite and Honkai Star Rail logos and teasing some of the cosmetic items that will be available.

What items are included in the Fortnite Honkai Star Rail collaboration?

So far, we have official confirmation of two cosmetic items included as part of the Honkai Star Rail x Fortnite collab, with Stellaron Hunters Kafka and Blade arriving as outfits in the item shop for a limited time only. It's likely that these will be part of a set, that may also include at least one related harvesting tool, back bling etc. According to this announcement from the official Honkai Star Rail X account, there will be a bonus offer to "Join the Honkai: Star Rail top up event in Epic Games Store. Eligible players will receive the “Blade” outfit in Fortnite as a bonus."

That's all we know for now, but "More details will be shared soon" – so we will update this guide as soon as we have further information to relay.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Chappell Roan is coming to Fortnite very soon, fulfilling a request the Grammy-winning singer made in an interview last year. Speaking to BBC Radio 1, the pop star begged the battle royale developers to "Please give me a skin, please", and now it's happening as part of Fortnite Festival Season 13.

As the headline act, there will be several Chappell Roan Fortnite skins to unlock, as well as a selection of Pink Pony-themed cosmetics to add to your locker and a brand new jam track to vibe with. If you're Hot To Go, then here's everything you need to know about Chappell Roan in Fortnite.

When does Chappell Roan arrive in Fortnite?

Chappell Roan arrives in Fortnite on February 5, 2026, as the new Icon for Fortnite Festival Season 13. She brings with her a medieval castle-themed Main Stage, matching the vibes of her “Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things” set design on tour, along with plenty of unlockable and purchasable cosmetic items that we'll outline below.

What Fortnite Chappell Roan items will be available?

A selection of Fortnite Chappell Roan items will be available during the course of Fortnite Festival Season 13, including the Roan of Arc outfit inspired by her performance at the 2024 VMAs, the Pink Pony glam of the Chappell Roan outfit, and an adorable Pink Pony sidekick complete complete with its own little cowboy hat! A full rundown of the cosmetic items being added via the Item Shop and Heartcore Music Pass are as follows:

• Item Shop:
  • Roan of Arc outfit
  • Pink Pony sidekick
  • Femininomenon emote (traversal)
  • Pink Pony Club emote (dance)
• Heartcore Music Pass:
  • Chappell Roan outfit
  • Midwest Princess keytar
  • Subway Serenader mic
  • Drumset Supernova
  • Pink Pony Star back bling (reactive)

Naturally, there will also be more music from Chappell Roan included, with the new Pink Pony Club jam track being made available as part of the Heartcore Music Pass. This season will also see the return of fan-favorite jam tracks The Giver, Good Luck, Babe!, and HOT TO GO!, so make sure you hit the main stage on February 5 to give them the encore they deserve.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Good luck is here for the Grammy-winning pop star, as Epic has revealed the Fortnite Chappell Roan collab she's been asking for since last year.

Roan, a noted Fortnite enthusiast who shot to stardom in 2024 for reasons entirely unrelated to Fortnite, made a public plea in an interview with BBC Radio 1 in 2025, begging Epic to "please give me a skin, please." Today, Epic announced that Roan is getting that and much more.

"Chappell Roan is the Fortnite Festival Season 13 Icon," reads the announcement. Fortnite Festival players can expect season 13 to be Chappell-themed, with the main stage taking on a medieval castle-look inspired by the singer's Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things tour design. Naturally, hit songs from Roan like 'Hot To Go!,' 'Pink Pony Club,' and 'Good Luck, Babe!' will be some of the season's new jam tracks.

However, for regular Fortnite Battle Royale players, this news simply means we're getting Chappell Roan skins, emotes, back blings, all that jazz. Specifically, the Roan of Arc outfit, pictured above, and the aptly named Chappell Roan outfit, will be added to Fortnite's in-game store on February 5, with the launch of Fortnite Festival season 13. You'll also find the adorable Pink Pony sidekick in the store alongside the Pink Pony Club and Femininomenon emotes.

Rounding out the collab are rewards you'll be able to unlock through the season 13 Heartcore music pass, including the Pink Pony Star back bling, Midwest Princess keytar, Subway Serenader mic and Drumset Supernova. All references I 100% understand because I'm super young, hip, and cool. None of that is true, but I'm happy for Chappell and her fans.

Epic Games Store GM says Valve's Team Fortress hats "definitely inspired" Epic's new Fortnite crossovers, like getting a Crimson Desert skin when you buy a game through Epic

Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison says the new batch of gift-with-purchase Fortnite collabs are inspired by Team Fortress 2.

Epic Games has previously offered goodies in Fortnite with the purchase of games on its store – most notably, in 2023, those who purchased Alan Wake 2 on the Epic Games Store received the man himself in Fortnite. However, Epic's gifting efforts seem to be ramping up in 2026, and players can already anticipate a Resident Evil: Requiem collaboration (giving players a Grace Ashcroft skin) and a Crimson Desert collaboration (giving players a Kliff skin).

Posting about the Kliff skin on Twitter, Allison says, "This is among the first of many Fortnite crossovers led by the Epic Games Store team granted as a with gift with purchase," a campaign that "will scale to over 100 partnerships per year." He explains, "This program was conceived to help developers sell more games."

However, in a reply, one user noted the similarity between this series of Fortnite collabs and what Valve used to do with Team Fortress 2. Steam used to offer incentives for purchasing games like Alien Isolation, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and Sleeping Dogs – while others titles like Telltale's Poker Night at the Inventory duology gifted items upon completing tasks in the game.

Allison admitted that this was "definitely inspired by exactly that," thanks to his own experience on the other side of the Team Fortress 2 deal. He explains, "when I was at Telltale Games we did TF hats as a gift with purchase every chance we could as it would always put our games in the top 5 sellers for a good 1-2 weeks," and this experience seems to have motivated Epic to try out a similar experiment with Fortnite. He says, "We tested this a lot late in 2025 and the lifts to partners sales were impressive and just like what we experienced then back in the day."

Epic's gifting efforts should hopefully be a win-win, theoretically boosting sales of partners' games so Fortnite players can get some new loot. And, for Epic, it may inspire some players to pick up a major third-party release like Resident Evil Requiem on the somewhat stigmatized Epic Games Store.

The Fortnite x South Park collab has me yearning for a canceled GTA-inspired game from 2005

Update: Epic Games reached out to clarify certain restrictions already in place regarding paid random items in Creative mode maps. Per information outlined on its In Island Transactions Restrictions page, "as required by local law, Paid Random Items are restricted" in Singapore, Australia, Qatar, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom (for players under 18), and Brazil (for players under 18, effective March 2026).

Original story:

Fortnite is now allowing devs behind user-generated Creative mode maps to sell their own in-game purchases, opening the door for even more spending, now even on things like loot boxes.

After a delay from last November, Creative mode transactions went live a few days ago – folks who make islands (maps) using Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) will earn 100% of the value of V-Bucks (in-game currency) spent in their games until January 31, 2027, and after that, they'll earn 50%, according to Epic Games. This can arguably be considered a good way to support these devs, but things become a little more uncomfortable when you look at what can actually be sold.

Obviously, Fortnite is no stranger to in-game purchases, with the regular Item Shop selling cosmetics like skins, emotes, and back blings daily – and that's in addition to the steady stream of new battle passes. However, it doesn't sell loot boxes or anything gambling-adjacent, which is what makes certain allowances for in-island transactions particularly surprising.

There are a few rules over what Creative mode devs are allowed to sell – "items that visually overlap with other Fortnite cosmetics categories, but are purely cosmetic and offer no gameplay value," for example, are banned, but they can sell gameplay items, consumables, and "paid random items (items that provide a chance to receive a random reward)." It's that last point in particular that's leaving a bad taste in some players' mouths, especially since paid random items have already been incorporated into Steal the Brainrot – quite easily the most popular third-party Creative mode map.

As highlighted across social media, it's now possible to spend V-Bucks to get a random abomination (officially, sigh, brainrot), from what's essentially a loot box. These vary in price, but for example, a single "Present Rot" box costs 2,700 V-Bucks, and you can get two bundled together for 4,900. For reference, most of Fortnite's popular collab skins cost 1,500 V-Bucks, and that bundle of two Present Rots costs about $37 in real-world dollars (assuming you buy a 5,000 V-Buck pack – smaller increments would see it cost even more). This same map also allows players to spend V-Bucks on a boosted-odds wheel spin, once again with random rewards.

"This feature sucks. I can get around game passes that offer guaranteed better items (Pay To Win) BUT any UEFN map that promises a percent CHANCE to get better items for V-Bucks should not be allowed," one player argues, concerned that with Steal the Brainrot in particular being largely targeted toward children, "they will mindlessly spend thousands of v-bucks for a CHANCE to get better in-game items, and they will fall into this trap / loop every single time they find a map with little things they like."

"I was optimistic about In-Island Translations, but after seeing this gambling style wheel In Steal The Brainrot I think I'm all set," writes another.

It remains to be seen if any further restrictions end up being put in place for in-island purchases, especially considering how controversial loot boxes have become around the world – they're banned altogether in Belgium. Fortnite: Save the World even removed its own random loot boxes (in the form of llamas) years ago, with an update that opted to show players the contents of a llama before purchasing.

Fortnite lead gushes that "working at Epic allows you to have your childhood dreams come true" as its new South Park collab is teased: "Working on this one made me so happy."

The Fortnite South Park crossover is drawing to a close, so this is the final opportunity for Butters to unleash his wrath during the Born in Chaos event. There's plenty to get stuck into here, including a free battle pass for everyone to work through and earn a selection of South Park-themed cosmetics, plus significant gameplay changes with fresh items and a new POI. The Born in Chaos event runs from January 9 until February 5, 2026, so if you're ready to head on down then here's what you need to know about South Park in Fortnite.

The Born in Chaos Pass is free for all players

Yes, you read that correctly – the Born in Chaos Pass for the Fortnite South Park event is completely free, so all players can access it without spending a single V-Buck! Found under the Born in Chaos tab in the menu, this will feature South Park quests to complete and unlock 13 themed cosmetic items, including the Cheesy Poofs Rocketship Emote, Terrance and Phillip Pickaxe, and Backpack of CRED Back Bling. Complete all of these quests, and the Imaginationland Airship Glider will be yours.

Completing these South Park quests will earn Cred, which in turn unlocks cosmetics in the Born in Chaos Pass. Clearing four of the quests in each Part will also give you a Memberberry, and collecting all six of those unlocks the Imaginationland Airship Glider.

The Born in Chaos quests are as follows, with upcoming challenges based on leaks and subject to change:

• Part 1 – Friendly Faces Everywhere
• Complete 4 Friendly Faces Quests to get a Memberberry (4):
• Ride different rides or eliminate players at Carmanland (5)
• Hit opponents with SMGs (100)
• After getting knocked, eliminate a player (1)
• Become a boss (1)
• Use Flushers in different matches (3)
• Damage opponents within 10 seconds of swimming (200)
  
  
• Part 2 – Sweet!
• Complete 4 Stan Quests to unlock a Memberberry (4):
• Use the Stick of Truth (1)
• Damage opponents at Carmine Lodge, Clawsy Lodge, or Tiptop Terrace (750)
• Thank the Bus Driver (3)
• Emote on the stage at Cartmanland (1)
• Maintain a speed below 40 in a vehicle for 30 seconds (1)
• Gain shields from Slurp Juice, Shield Potion, or Chug Jug (350)
  
  
• Part 3 – You Know, I Learned Something Today
• Complete 4 Kyle Quests to unlock a Memberberry (4):
• Search containers or destroy objects in Classified Canyon (25)
• Spray or emote within 10 meters of Cartman's statue (1)
• Eliminate players with assault rifles (5)
• Complete matches without using a zipline or ascender (2)
• Restore health or gain shields (250)
• Damage bosses (500)
  
  
• Part 4 – Looks Like You're About To Get Pwned
• Complete 4 Cartman Quests to unlock a Memberberry (4):
• Jump from Sunset Falls into the water below (1)
• Damage opponents with a hired specialist (200)
• Eliminate an opponent while in water (1)
• Eat or hit players with Cheesy Poofs (15)
• Turn left in a vehicle (4)
• Destroy objects in Bumpy Bay or Artsy RVs (25)
  
  
• Part 5 – Mph Mmmph Mhh Mmph
• Complete 4 Kenny Quests to unlock a Memberberry (4):
• Mmmmpmpph mmhhmph [Get Rebooted using Kenny's Respawn Token] (1)
• Mph mpmphh mmmph [Get revived 3 times in total by a teammate] (3)
• Mphmmph mhhmmph [Get 10 headshots on opponents] (10)
• Mph mpphmmph [Visit the pylon in Battlewood Boulevard] (1)
• Mmmh mpphh mmmph [Travel distance while airborne] (200)
• Mph mpph mhppmmph [Hire a specialist] (1)
  
  
• Part 6 – Oh, Hamburgers!
• Complete 4 Butters Quests to unlock a Memberberry (4):
• Outlast players after taking storm damage (25)
• Emote within 5 seconds of eliminating a player (1)
• Search containers in Sandy Strip, Humble Hills, or Lethal Labs (15)
• Destroy objects with explosives (25)
• Eliminate opponents without a headshot (3)
• Reach top 20 without damaging anyone (1)

A new Quints 5-person playlist is live

To celebrate the arrival of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, and Butters outfits in the Item Shop, you can now get the whole gang together by jumping into the new Quints 5-person playlist and increasing the size of your squad. While this mode is initially intended just for the crossover event, a Fortnite lead suggests it could become permanent if it proves to be successful.

Fresh South Park-themed gameplay items are available

There are a number of new gameplay items with a South Park theme added, to change up how matches play out during this event. If you get your hands on the Stick of Truth, then you have a one-time opportunity to control where the Storm goes for the first time ever. You can also use Cheesy Poofs to heal yourself and allies or damage opponents, and carrying Kenny's Respawn Token means you'll be rebooted automatically after being eliminated – but that is single use only!

You can visit new POI Cartmanland

Carman's personal theme park Cartmanland has now been added to the map as a fresh POI in the northwest corner of the island, so head there to explore a range of attractions. There are a selection of rideable thrills to discover, such as Chaos Blast, Voyage to the Center of the Planet, and Pi Pi's Splash Town.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Epic Games has announced that five player teams will be included in the game as a limited time mode to coincide with the South Park collab.

After teasing the collab earlier this week, Epic Games unveiled that South Park will be joining Fortnite on January 9, 2026. The announcement was joined by an animated short by the South Park team showing the main four boys playing the game and leaving poor Butters out of the game, before he appeared as his supervillain alter ego Professor Chaos with The Stick of Truth (of South Park: The Stick of Truth fame). This then teleported the five boys into Fortnite with mech suits, with the Imaginationland balloon taking over the Battle Bus, the Stick of Truth and Cheesy Poofs as in-game items, and a Cartman Land POI.

However, the big news was actually only teased in the trailer, and confirmed in the description. Fortnite is adding "Quints," a five-player team mode to the game alongside this South Park collab (presumably because they were also sad seeing Butters being left out). The text reads, "Channel Cartman, Kenny, Stan, Kyle, and Butters with their Outfits in the Shop and get rewarded with items from the free Born in Chaos Pass! Don't forget to explore Cartmanland and jump into the new Quints 5-person playlist. Live Friday until February 5."

Fortnite design director Ted Timmins explains the mode was added "because every squad has their 'Butters.'"

So at the moment, Quints is only a limited time mode until next month, however, a fan asks Timmins, "If it's a successful mode, can we keep it forever please," to which Timmins responds: "Make it successful then we'll talk."

Of course, this adds yet another two layers to the Battle Royale experience as now players will be split across five versions of the game mode depending on team size, and that's doubled with Zero Build – and then there's the litany of other modes on top of that. I personally like the idea of Quints, but I could see it becoming an issue if the playerbase isn't there, but let's hope that's not the case, because more options are always great.

Fortnite Chapter 7 was designed to take the game "back to its battle royale roots," even though it didn't actually start as one, and one lead is "both in awe and hugely proud of this team"

Modern online games are a paradox for me: I really like the structure of a battle royale, but I'm really, really bad at multiplayer shooters. Fall Guys was a breath of fresh air when it let me put my much-more-respectable platformer skills to the test. Thankfully, Scramble Knights Royale is here to let me have some royal battles in another genre I'm comfortable with: Zelda-style action-adventure games.

Scramble Knights Royale was announced some time ago – you might've seen it in a recent Day of the Devs showcase – and is scheduled for launch later this year, but we'll all have a chance to try it out much sooner than that.

A playtest for Scramble Knights Royale is scheduled to run this weekend – January 9 through January 11 – with sign-ups available right now on the game's Steam page. You can check the official FAQ for details on what to expect from the playtest, but the key caveat is that it'll only be available in North America.

The first thing you'll note about Scramble Knights Royale is just how darn cute it looks. Its art style is reminiscent of the Link's Awakening remake and Echoes of Wisdom, but it goes even harder on the claymation vibes, with unsteady character models that look like they're constantly being pushed and prodded by human fingers.

Matches see 32 players land on an island (via turtleback, naturally) and spread out to discover their own, individual adventures. There are treasures to find and dungeons full of monsters to overcome, all of which will help you power up your character for your eventual battles against other players, with, of course, the goal to be the last knight standing.

It looks like a delightful variation on the battle royale formula, and I'm eager to see what the response to the first playtest will look like. It's a rough time to launch a multiplayer game that relies on a robust player count, but here's hoping Scramble Knights Royale can stand out in the battle royale sea.

Here are the best battle royale games you can play right now.

Fortnite has announced that South Park content will be arriving in the game this week, and the game's design director seems thrilled.

Fortnite has crossed over with everything at this point – good, bad, and weird, Epic Games has found a way to get its hands on it. But over the last few years, Epic has really gone after the animated sitcom market. Starting with Family Guy's Peter Griffin in 2024, this was swiftly followed by the likes of Futurama, King of the Hill, Bob's Burgers, and Beavis and Butthead before culminating in an entire season based around The Simpsons last November. But one of the pillars of that genre will be soon joining them.

After some rumor and speculation, today Fortnite posted a picture of Butters from South Park playing the game with the caption "Chaos, loading…" Also included in the post is a date, 1.9.26 (which is three days from now, not September for those of you in countries that do dates the right way).

Fortnite design director Ted Timmins expresses his excitement for the collab in a follow-up post on Twitter, saying: "AHHHHHHHHHHHH WORKING ON THIS ONE MADE ME SO HAPPY." Timmins continues, "Please excuse the lack of professionalism here but working at Epic allows you to have your childhood dreams come true."

What the crossover entails hasn't been confirmed, but given the focus on Butters and the use of "Chaos," it's safe to assume Butters' supervillain alter ego, Professor Chaos, could be part of it.

Fortnite leaker HYPEX claims the crossover will feature multiple skins as well as Mythic items that players can pick up during their battle royale matches, so it looks like it won't just be cosmetics.

I'd also wager some form of Sidekick based on the recent SpongeBob collab, perhaps a Kenny sidekick that has a ton of death animations? We won't need to wait too long to know.

Until then, why not relive the show's finest moments with our ranking of the best South Park episodes.

Fortnite Simple Build has been designed to help players create structures quickly, without needing to constantly switch between the different pieces used in construction. While this method can make things easier, it's not as flexible as the original system and takes practice to use effectively, so it won't be to all players' liking. You may have accidentally activated it from the splash screen introducing it, or intentionally gave it a go but didn't gel with it but, whatever the reason, if you want to turn off Fortnite Simple Build then here's how to do it.

What is Fortnite Simple Build?

Fortnite Simple Build is a new building method, which aims to make things easier by reducing the inputs required to just two, and it was introduced at the start of Fortnite Chapter 7. When Simple Build is turned on and you switch to building mode, your Primary input will place either Stairs, Floors, or Roofs, depending on which direction you're facing – looking up or down will construct Stairs, while looking forward will place Floors instead. Your Secondary input just places Walls, so you can combine the two to quickly build structures without having to keep manually swapping between different pieces.

How to turn Fortnite Simple Build off

However, if you've decided that this method is not for you and you'd prefer to turn Fortnite Simple Build off, then you need to delve into the ever-expanding Settings menu. Highlight the GAME tab along the top bar, then select Building from the side menu and you'll see an On/Off toggle for Simple Build at the top of that section. Turn off Simple Build here and you can go back to the original building method with more control over what you place.

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Fortnite Chapter 7 is here, and with Season 1 there are a number of new mechanics to use in the battle royale, including the ability to roll around when you're knocked down. With that also comes something else – Helldivers 2-esque ragdoll-like physics, which can see you uncontrollably tumbling down hills and being flung around by friend and foe alike.

When playing with a team (or solo, if you've managed to grab one of the rare new Self-Revive Devices), when you get knocked, you now have the ability to roll as well as crawl, giving you more room to flee from danger and get rescued by your friends. You have a fair bit of control over this… unless you happen to be by a hill, where your player character's newfound floppiness can see them tumble all the way down – very funny if it's what you were aiming for, perhaps less so if your friends are stuck watching you fall when they could really do with getting you back into the fight.

"This is the most embarrassing mechanic ever added to fortnite," one unlucky player writes, sharing a clip of them going on what must have felt like a journey across the entire map in one spectacularly long tumble.

Generally though, it's incredibly amusing. Responding to one clip on Twitter, Fortnite design director Ted Timmins reveals it was also, understandably, a very comical mechanic to test: "I remember in the internal playtest reviews for this having tears in my eyes as we practiced tumbling down hills over and over again."

Those new floppy ragdoll-esque animations are also front and center when knocked players are thrown and hit with cars. Social media is currently full of clips of people being launched in spectacular ways – you can bask in their glory below.

Ragdolls are the funniest thing they’ve added in a while from r/FortNiteBR

While some have been quick to point out that the mechanic doesn't really count as true, proper ragdolling – characters certainly aren't quite as floppy and likely to be sent into the stratosphere as they are in Helldivers 2, for example – it's still funny to watch, and feels like Epic may have taken another leaf out of Arrowhead's book after its bug-fighting season. Whatever the inspiration, however, I'm here for it.

Fortnite Chapter 7 was designed to take the game "back to its battle royale roots," even though it didn't actually start as one, and one lead is "both in awe and hugely proud of this team."

A wrinkle in Fortnite's history that can get overlooked is that it didn’t start as a battle royale, but as a more lighthearted survival game. The 100-person free-for-all mode came slightly after launch, but even as far as the devs are concerned, that's inconsequential at this point.

Or that's the implication, at least, from an amusing tweet by Fortnite design director Ted Timmins. "Many months ago we set out to take Fortnite back to its battle royale roots - where every match would feel different, to give the game a quality of life update, and respect what has made Fortnite, Fortnite," he says.

"I'm left both in awe and hugely proud of this team," he continues, "and while the new chapter is only just beginning - it's great to start it by seeing such positivity from the community."

While it's humorous to see Fortnite's "battle royale roots" referenced as some benchmark when it's simply not where the generation-defining game came from, there's an element of truth to the claim. For most fans, Fortnite is and has always been the playful skirmish we still know it has, where you drop in as one of many dozen players, striving to be the last one left.

In any case, his comment reflects what Fortnite Chapter 7 offers. There's a new self-revive item, along with the ability to get revived through Reboot Vans, as well as a Simple Build mechanic, the removal of gold bar carry over, forcing you to spend those dubloons while you have them, and the power to quick-scope while jumping.

These make gameplay quicker and more unpredictable, and along with the usual smattering of licensed skins and another map, have definitely injected some life into Fortnite coming into its ninth year (!). The new Simpsons season is still ongoing as well, if you fancy dropping into Springfield to cause some carnage.

Just remember, Fortnite: Save the World came first. Save the World is dead, long live Save the World.

Fortnite Chapter 7 kicks off with artist defending their work from AI allegations, probably not helped by Epic CEO's recent prediction that "AI will be involved in nearly all future production" of games

Fortnite's latest season is here, marking the start of the battle royale's seventh chapter, but some players are concerned that certain assets found in the latest update could be AI-generated, a worry that one artist has already responded to to defend their work.

As highlighted across social media, several assets have come under scrutiny – one of which is a poster featuring a yeti who has five toes on one foot and four on the other. "I can't tell if this is AI-generated, but the odd number of toes makes me think so," a Reddit user writes, sharing a screenshot. "I really hope it isn't AI!"

Is this Chapter 7 art AI generated? from r/FortNiteBR

"Certainly looks like it unfortunately," another agrees, while one alleges: "The AI sloppification begins."

Elsewhere, an in-game poster featuring a tomato-headed talk show presenter has also been called into question, with one player asking: "Did Fortnite use AI to make this poster?"

While there hasn't yet been an official response to these AI allegations, one artist has stepped forward after a spray cosmetic he designed came under scrutiny. The spray in question – titled 'Looking McFly' – stars Marty McFly and can be unlocked in the new Battle Pass, and quickly saw players questioning how it was made.

"Am I losing it or does this Fortnite spray look like it was AI-generated?" one player asks, while another writes: "This HAS to be AI, right???" However, in this case, artist Sean Dove says that's not the case.

"I guess someone on Reddit thinks this was AI," he writes in a post on Instagram. "I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock an wasn't paying attention."

Backing up his point further, he shares another Instagram post, this time showing the various different layers of the artwork in art software Procreate. "I don't have a Reddit account but just in case people are being weird, here's my procreate layers," he adds.

Regardless of the accuracy of the AI accusations, it's little wonder that players are applying a little extra scrutiny to Fortnite right now following recent comments made by Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney. The CEO has recently been calling for the removal of Steam's "AI tag" – the disclosure added onto games on Steam that make it clear if AI was used in the development of a title, and if so, in what ways. He stated that "it makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production," and later doubled down, adding: "I just hate to see Valve confiscate ever more opportunity from small developers by facilitating new categories, cancel campaigns, and review bombing."

We've reached out to Epic Games to ask if AI was used to generate any assets in Fortnite Chapter 7: Season 1, and will update this article if we receive a response.

Old copy of Fortnite from before it went free-to-play sells for $42,500, and while you might think that's weird, remember that the person who bought it probably won't play it anyway.