Abi Risser

Associate Opinion Editor 

On Sept. 27, Epic Games released season six of “Fortnite: Battle Royale.” The season began with a rough start, especially for Xbox users, but Epic was able to fix the bugs and move forward. Fortnite can be accessed through Xbox, PlayStation, PC, IOS, and Android.

In the previous season, season five, a mysterious cube moved around the map, burning runes into the ground at various locations on the game map. Towards the end, the cube found its way to Loot Lake where it melted into the lake itself. In the new season, the cube reformed and lifted the house at the center into the air, creating a massive whirlpool in the center of the lake. The floating cube and house are now traveling through the map as the cube had done prior. This leaves question to what Epic is planning on doing plot-wise as the season progresses. Epic has also placed a castle on a mountain between Pleasant Park and Haunted Hills. Is this a plot progression?

Apart from the map, there are various other new features that players can unlock through weekly and daily challenges. Like usual, what players can unlock depends on if they purchase the battle pass or not. Fortnite is free to play, but Epic also offers the option to buy a battle pass for the season. The battle pass offers more challenges as well as more rewards and higher XP gain. The battle pass is 950 V-Bucks, or 10 USD. If players decide to purchase a battle pass, they have the ability to unlock pets, which is a new feature to the season. The pets are dogs, chameleons, and dragons that ride on the players back and interact throughout the game—don’t worry, the pets cannot be injured!

Additionally, Epic also released new skins, emotes, backgrounds, and music to play in the home screen.

Is it worth investing money into a free game?

Millersville Student Paige Bryant feels like it’s a good deal. “I think buying the season pass isn’t a bad idea if you want the game content but don’t want to spend a lot of money,” Bryant says. “It’s only $10 for $80-100 worth of content. And if you save up in game currency [through tiering up], you’ll have enough to get the next season for free basically.” She has been playing since the second season.

Another advantage to buying the season is being automatically boosted to tier six in the following season, where free players will only be gifted the first tier.

For the most part, the game itself hasn’t changed much. A few weapons were removed, such as the guided missiles, light machine gun, and remote explosives. ‘Shadow Stones’ from the cube were added to the game, but only for a short time. Bug issues arose forcing Epic to disable the stones until the problems are resolved. Lastly, a new game mode will be released. Teams of 50, a big hit, rolled over from the previous season, but players can look forward to ‘Disco Domination.’ Players will have to use emotes to defend various points on the map.

Season six seems very promising; it’s one of their better seasons in concerns of content. The biggest question is whether or not Epic will stick to the plot, or abandon it as done so in seasons four and five, when the meteor took our Dusty Depot in the fourth, and when objects from different eras teleported into the Fortnite Universe in season five.

Only time will tell, so squad up and pick a spot to drop.