The past year has been a momentous one for Fortnite, marking its biggest expansions ever with a pile of diverse new game modes, and a partnership with Disney that we still don't know all the details of. Chapter 5 kicked off in December 2023 with the launch of Lego Fortnite, Fortnite Festival, and Rocket Racing, and Epic has added several major new modes since then, like Reload in the summer, and OG and Ballistic earlier this month. There's more Fortnite now than there's ever been.

Naturally, it hasn't been all good or all bad--there have been mistakes, and there have been triumphs, and there's been everything you can imagine in between. But one thing is for sure: Fortnite is a very different game at the end of 2024 that it was at the beginning. Let's take a look back at the good and the bad from this year in Fortnite.

Love: Epic-created metaverse

Since the start of Chapter 5, Fortnite has introduced Lego Fortnite Odyssey and Brick Life, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, Fortnite Reload, Fortnite OG, and Fortnite Ballistic. While they haven't all been smash hits, all these modes have been a net positive for Fortnite, both individually and as a whole. Even Rocket Racing, which flopped, is actually pretty fun--it just has no framework to speak of that might keep casual players hooked.

As somebody who's squarely in the "it's time to settle down" phase of his life, the diversification of Fortnite is working for me in a big way. The more varied fun I can have with Fortnite, and the more ways Epic comes up with for me to use the cosmetics I've bought over the years, the less I'm going to be inclined to waste my SSD space on the competition. It's a win for me and Epic both.

Hate: User-created metaverse

It's been nearly two years since Epic unleashed the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), which granted content creators much more powerful tools for creating worlds and games in Fortnite Creative than they had previously. And so far, very little has come of it--the charts remain dominated by the same sort of boxfight deathmatch maps as always, and there has been very little in the way of innovation because the most prominent creators are usually either chasing trends or working for hire to build maps for third-party corporations. While Epic's own portion of the metaverse is doing well, the rest of it isn't up to par just yet.

Love: Battle royale getting weird

Chapter 5 in battle royale was unusually divisive, thanks to the overpowered boss medallions that were first introduced in Season 1, the laser-like Waterbending mythic in Season 2, the disproportional focus on vehicular combat in Season 3, and finally War Machine's abominable jetpack in Season 4. The gimmicks in Chapter 5 were unusually intense and over the top, even by Fortnite standards, and I had a blast with all of them--though I agree wholeheartedly with the consensus that it's for the best if we never see that jetpack again.

Thanks to the introduction of the permanent OG mode and other new shooter modes to attract the attention of folks who aren't into those sorts of gimmicks, it frees Epic to continue to go hog-wild in the core battle royale mode. The detractors can simply avoid that stuff by playing OG instead and not having to deal with it, and the people who do like the gimmicks can keep on keeping on. It works out for everybody.

Hate: Inflation

Inflation hit Fortnite very hard in the past year, thanks to a multi-pronged approach from Epic to increase the price of everything. It began in late 2023 with the increased price of V-Bucks, and continued into the new year with two major changes in Epic's item shop philosophy: Aside from some Icon skins (skins of real celebrities like Shaq) and ultra-customizable skins like the Skratch Company set, Fortnite stopped released new collaboration skins that have multiple style options.

In Chapter 5 Season 4, for example, Epic released 21 new non-Icon collaboration skins. Only three of them had any style options at all, and those three only had toggleable features--Iron Spider's helmet, Black Cat's mask, and Spider-Woman's webbing. These days, Epic defaults to selling additional styles separately, as we've just seen with the Platinum Festival skins, which are minor recolors of existing skins being sold for 1,800 V-Bucks each. In the past, styles like that would have been added to the existing skins as a value-add to motivate new purchases, but those days are over.

And on top of that, Epic developed a troubling habit of bundling collaboration skins with accessories for a higher price and not allowing you to buy them on their own. Once a rare practice, Epic pulled this move at least 30 times in 2024, mostly on collab skins. There were only five total examples of Epic trying this tactic in 2023, and four of them were the TMNT skins the company released at the very end of the year.

And, finally, on top of all that, bundle prices have gone through the rough. These used to max out at 2800 V-Bucks, presumably because you can buy that exact amount. But all the big collaboration bundles in 2024 went past that, with 3400-3800 apparently becoming Epic's preferred price range for big bundles. Fortunately for everyone, Epic seems to be retreating from this new standard a little bit with most of the new bundles in December.

Love: The return of ambient live events

Each season during Chapter 5 ended with some sort of community live event that took place during battle royale matches, starting with the combined effort to break the chains on Pandora's Box at the end of Season 1. This was similar to how Fortnite approached these events back in the day, before Epic switched to mostly just doing instanced events like Collision in Chapter 3 and the Big Bang at the end of Chapter 4.

But these ambient events are great, because they last a while--it took a whole weekend to open Pandora's Box, so it was easy for everyone to get involved because there wasn't one set time for it. And it's also nice to have that feeling that the island is evolving while we're on it: something that was harder to pull off with those instanced events.

Hate: The apparent demise of Rocket Racing

It's hard to figure what exactly went wrong with Rocket Racing, which has been hovering around 3,000 concurrent players for a while now--a very low number for an Epic-supported mode. But it's been months since the Rocket Racing Twitter had any activity, and while Festival and Lego modes were getting anniversary updates, Rocket Racing has just been quietly hanging out with no real movement, beyond the addition of new car cosmetics in the shop. It's hard to imagine Epic ever actually abandoning the mode completely, but it's certainly in limbo at the moment, and we have no indication of what Epic may or may not be planning for it. It's a bummer, because it's a fun mode--it just has no hook.

Love: New cosmetic types

Confession time: I've spent too much money on Fortnite, going back to when I was unemployed a few years ago and binge-played Fortnite for several weeks straight to help me quit my longtime cigarette habit. So I'm definitely one of those people who have too many Fortnite skins. Because of that, I'm a harder sell than I used to be. But Epic has managed to introduce new types of things to the item shop that I actually want--I've become a purveyor of jam tracks, instruments, and car skins (my Fast & Furious cars crossing over from Rocket League has been delightful), and I've even bought several pairs of kicks. Anything that makes my digital action figures look goofier pleases me, and all these new cosmetic types accomplish that, while also adding some new flavor to Fortnite as a whole.

Hate: Epic's draconian attempts to control player progress

Fortnite's battle pass has always been pretty easy for anyone to complete, whether you play regularly or just show up at the end of the season and grind out all the weekly quests. Epic, naturally, would prefer that you stick around for the duration, and the company has made repeated attempts over the years to make it harder to get through the battle pass quickly. With so many different modes for earning XP now, though, it's tough for them to do that without being really annoying and obvious about it, such as with the weekly XP throttling we saw Epic try when Chapter 6 launched earlier this month. They walked most of those changes back, but this same story keeps playing out over and over--I'm sure we'll be at it again when Season 2 starts in February.

Love: The death of exclusivity

Fortnite's exclusive battle-pass cosmetics made sense before we all realized that Fortnite would become a World of Warcraft-esque forever game, but now it's kind of awkward to have skins like Darth Vader and Indiana Jones permanently locked to new players. Starting with the Marvel-themed Chapter 5 Season 4, new battle-pass cosmetics will no longer be permanently exclusive, and that's an overdue change.

Hate: The neverending argument about exclusivity

Unlike some folks, I don't believe Epic will be bringing back old battle pass content any time soon--but, frankly, I don't think I really care either way. Epic just brought back the old Renegade Raider and Aerial Assault Trooper skins to the item shop, and despite being a collector I felt absolutely no desire to get them. I already have the gingerbread-themed re-do of Renegade Raider, which is way more fun. And in a holiday season that's bringing us Santa-themed skins for Mariah Carey, Shaq and Snoop Dogg, not to mention Cyberpunk 2077 items, basic old Fortnite skins like these aren't worth even considering.

So if anything ever happens with old battle passes, I'll probably be generally apathetic about it--I'm content with my piles of stuff from the shop. But in the meantime, I'm extremely tired of this being a non-stop topic of debate. Epic has to comply with so many rules set by so many governmental regulatory bodies in so many different countries, and navigating that minefield is beyond my pay grade, and certainly it's beyond that of those who are fighting about this on Reddit every day. That debate is all noise, and we're far past the point where it's fun anymore.