Fortnite Battle Royale kicks off Season 4 with superheroes, sprays, and a totally transformed map

After weeks of build-up, Epic Games has finally launched Season 4 of Fortnite Battle Royale, bringing a wealth of new content to its free-to-play PvP phenomenon as part of a new superhero and sci-fi theme set to liven up the proceedings of its last man standing bouts of mayhem.

The question on everyone’s minds is how the long teased meteor strike has actually impacted Fortnite Season 4 in-game, and the answer is suitably mind blowing.

A new cinematic trailer can now be watched online or upon booting up the game itself, and reveals that a barrage of comets have indeed crash landed onto the map, destroying familiar infrastructure and changing its very topography in serious ways. 

For example, there are new Point of Interests and locations to explore in the wake of the meteor shower. The big one is Dusty Divot; a giant crater left by the comet's impact where Dusty Depot used to be. The glowing rocks found there (and in other craters around the map) can be consumed by players to exploit gravity to their advantage, essentially creating new low-gravity combat arenas that will drastically change up how fights play out in-game.

This is the main change in a sea of updates made to the map; from the appearance of Risky Reels in the North East corner to a new, unnamed mansion on the Eastern shore outside Lonely Lodge.

As with previous seasons, a new Battle Pass is now available to purchase for 950 V-Bucks or around £8/$10 in real currency, and offers 100 tiers of progression for subscribers to unlock new cosmetic items like costumes, gliders, pickaxes, and more. Many of these additions are inspired by superhero and comic book imagery, including the Omega Legendary outfit that is awarded to players who unlock every tier this season.

The season is set to last for the next 70 days, which gives you plenty of time to power through those tiers and reach the end, and Epic has promised that more challenges will be arriving each week to help you earn as many of those Battle Pass Stars as you can.

There's additionally a handful of quality of life updates brought in with today's Season 4 patch, such as the new "Drag and Drop" quick bar on mobile which now lets you switch out your equipped items with more ease, speeding up the pace of firefights and give players a better chance at staying alive in the heat of the moment. 

Across all platforms, the crossbow's been vaulted, sprays have been added, hitbox detection has been polished up, and you can now destroy buildings on the starting island if, uh, that was something that's been annoying you since day one. 

You'll also notice that the game's menus have changed somewhat, as Epic continues to clean up Fortnite's user interface and make things cleaner and more accessible to all player types. But who has time to celebrate new menus when there's so many craters to explore?

Just picked up the Season 4 Battle Pass? Read up on our expert Fortnite tips to learn the best ways to score that coveted Victory Royale award.

Alex Avard

I'm GamesRadar's Features Writer, which makes me responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet!