Fortnite Battle Royale kicks off season 3 with a bigger, better Battle Pass filled with spacesuits, skydiving trails, and... loading screens?!

I hope you’ve maxed out your tiers and nabbed that Black Knight costume in Fortnite Battle Royale come sunset today, because season 2 is coming to a close, bringing an end to the Battle Pass as we know it. Battle Pass, for those who don't know, was an in-game purchase that allowed players to level up faster and earn more cosmetic items for Epic’s free-to-play Battle Royale mode. 

But the denouement of season 2 heralds in the new dawn of season 3, and  introduces a brand new Battle Pass for Fortnite later this week. Epic has done its research, and has created something bigger, better, and more cost-effective for this new season of Battle Royale, with more tiers and a wider range of goodies to unlock, most of which have never been seen in the game before.

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The Battle Pass will have a total of 100 tiers to progress through, which is 30 more than last season, but Epic has confirmed that it’ll still take around the same amount of time (roughly 75 - 150 hours) to max everything out. That essentially means the studio has just jammed more loot into the Pass, with 30 more unlockable items available to get your hands on for season 3. 

While Epic hasn’t given a whole ton of detail as to what these new items will look like, we do know a few things about the contents of the Pass. There’ll be six outfits (including that spacesuit seen in the image above), three pickaxes, four emotes, three gliders, three back blings (cosmetic backpacks for your character), five skydiving FX trails, eight loading screens (I'm as clueless as you are about that one), 23 banners, and 21 emoticons.

This iteration of the Battle Pass also differs from the last by adding exclusive weekly challenges, which gives players more opportunities to progress through their tiers at a faster rate. There’ll be seven new weekly challenges per week, and you need to complete at least four of them to unlock the rewards they provide. 

But don’t worry; the challenges stack, meaning you won’t be obliged to complete them before the new challenges arrive, and anyone who buys the Battle Pass slightly later will have access to all the old challenges. 

The season 3 Battle Pass will cost you 950 V-Bucks, which you can earn either in Battle Royale and Fortnite's single-player Save the World mode, or acquire through investing around $10/£8 of your own real world money. As with before, you can also progress through the tiers by purchasing them with V-Bucks, which cost 150 of the in-game currency per tier. 

Season 2 Battle Pass owners do not automatically gain access to the new Pass, but Epic will be selling a limited time Battle Bundle offer for season 3’s launch, which costs 2800 V-Bucks and gets you the new Battle Pass with the first 25 tiers instantly unlocked. 

Season 2 ends today, so we can expect to see the new season starting from anytime tomorrow... Meanwhile, you can read more about the new Battle Pass on Epic's website here. What items are you most looking forward to in Battle Royale’s next chapter? Let us know in the comments below, but please don’t say it’s the loading screens.