Very happy that we're back to pretty solid groundwork here after how bad the last two Chapter 4 seasons were, but I also don't think this first version of the new map is as good as what Chapter 4 started with. There's not enough distinct points of interests on this new map and the biomes feel very samey, especially when at some point they melted away a part of the snow area only serving to further make the map feel more bland visually. Making the train a focal point is incredibly strange when it really doesn't add much outside of some obnoxious weekly quests that Epic would later replace because of how frustrating they were. Thankfully I can at least expect the map to only get better from here with more variety on later seasons.

Talking about Chapter 5's first season can't really be limited to just Battle Royale changes though because this new chapter (or just overall upcoming year) marks the point of Epic trying even harder to expand Fortnite to something beyond just a shooter and something more expansive, playing more into the "metaverse" idea that they've been marketing harder towards. I have more extensive thoughts for each gamemode but honestly the most I can say for them overall is that they're pretty basic starts that I expected a fair bit more of for how much they were trying to push them as entire new "games" inside of Fortnite. They aren't. At least not yet. Time will only tell how much of this endeavor is going to pay off or not, but Epic really needs to step it up if it's ever going to. Festival is my favorite of the three modes, but there's absolutely a personal bias for how much I like Guitar Hero/Rock Band as well as how much Harmonix has publicly stated their future plans for the mode (namely actual proper guitar controller support), unlike Lego Fortnite or Rocket Racing which I have very little idea of where their primary goals or roadmap really looks like.

The shop was a mess this whole season because of how much having to support Lego Fortnite skin comparability butchered what Epic could have available. Good for my wallet, probably not great for the thousands of players who were used to the pretty regular rotation of old and new skins that were normally available. The TMNT pass had a really cool Shredder skin that I sadly gave into, but I feel gross for paying that much for it alongside the rest of the skins that were overpriced in the shop for the crossover. All cosmetics for the new gamemodes are even worse in pricing and I will genuinely be in shock if Epic keeps them like that next season.

A pretty good start for another year of the game. I'm probably placing more faith in later seasons doing more interesting things than I probably should be, but here's hoping that we get something as good as the MEGA season from Chapter 4 maybe.

cant fully rate this one because im stuck on cloud gaming with a deck controller but i do really like what ive seen. battle pass is really good, the new jonesy is absolutely amazing. tmnt in week 2 is a great collab already spent all my leftover vbucks from when i forgot to unsub from crew on donny.
The bosses being a lot easier for a nifty little reward and permanent glowing target on your back is definitely nice but nothing will beat hitting darth vader with a bus and your duos shooting him with a cannon midair only for him to kill you with that same bus by throwing you at it repeatedly when you get out to actually damage him.

The novelty season.

Season's not completely done yet but I'm gonna log this now because not much else is gonna change before it does. This season, maybe more than any other, is one that seems insanely cool on the surface, but which pretty quickly revealed itself to just be a bunch of little novelties stapled together.

Cool new gamemodes, too bad that they're all only interesting for maybe an hour or two each (with Lego Fortnite feeling particularly uneventful and grindy, and the rhythm one being comically expensive for how simple it is).
Cool train, too bad that it's such a minor and inconsequential part of the map.
Cool new map, too bad that most of the locations aren't that interesting or unique, with two different farms, two different swanky coastal areas, and two different swanky mansions. When the most interesting POI on your map is some tennis courts and an unnamed yacht shoved off to the side, shit is dire.
Cool new weapon upgrade system, too bad that all the weapons share the same small pool of options and you're always gonna want the ones that play the most into the given weapon (i.e., snipers are always gonna use the 4x scope, angled foregrip, and larger magazine), with the rest not doing anything to change how you play at all.

It's fine, it's still Fortnite. But in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty bland filler season, which is pretty bad for the start of a chapter, given CH4's was great. Not completely terrible, as the best part of last chapter's map was added in season 2 (the purple area in the southeast), but this is very much a map that I'll be excited for big sweeping changes to happen to, rather than a solid base to build off of.

Pretty good season. The new map was neat but some of the new locations are a bit uninteresting and forgettable. The new weapon modding system is really cool but I wish the mod benches were more common around the map. The battlepass was really strong, I didn't really dislike any of the skins. Collabs were really good as well, especially the TMNT event and mini-pass. The new gamemodes added are fun and can be a nice break from the main BR mode. Overall, a fun season and a good start to the new chapter.

This new chapter of fortnite brought on so many changes, and unfortunately, a majority of them were not that great. First and foremost, the new game modes: LEGO fortnite, fortnite festival, and rocket racing. This was all revealed during a pretty cool live event at the end of the prior season, but I guess the spectacle made them seem a lot cooler than they actually were. LEGO fortnite is just an open world survival game, I spent a bit of time in it but it's not all that fun. Rocket racing is the worst of them all, so bad, I refuse to touch it. I don't know WHY it's bad, but people say it's bad, and I trust the collective online consensus on this one. The only acceptable one is fortnite festival which is basically guitar hero. Cheap rhythm game, but it can be pretty fun. What sucks is you have to buy the songs you actually want to play, otherwise you're stuck with the daily rotation or the epic originals (most of which are ass). You can play part of a song in battle royale as well like an emote; killing someone then singing Buddy Holly is an INSANE power move.

As for the meat of the game, battle royale, it got noticeably worse. Snipers are broken. They've always been strong, which is kind of a necessary evil, but what made them so strong is the complete removal of hitscan on every kind of assault rifle and DMR. Utilizing hitscan was the best counter against snipers, but now the only way to counter a sniper is with a sniper of your own, which means by the final few circles, everyone is gonna be carrying a sniper. Sniping can be fun, and I won't get mad at it a lot of the time, but when most of your matches are instakills from sniper headshots or dying instantly to sniper headshots, it gets irritating really quickly.

Modding benches are cool but WAY too limited. This seemed to be a big selling point of the season based on the trailer, but in reality, you'll never be seeing one most games. There's only five on the map: 4 at the boss locations, requiring you to kill the boss beforehand, and one on the island which spawns in after the first few circles. Weapons have a chance to drop with a mod already on them based on rarity, but it's rarely going to be customized entirely to your liking without a bench. It's great when you do get a chance to modify your weapons, but most games, you're stuck with whatever you get.

Weapon pool and loot was subpar. Like I said, snipers were a huge problem, but there wasn't much you could really do about that. Ballistic shields were pretty annoying, as well. You technically could counter them by shooting the player's feet or in the eye hole, but that's hard to do with a gun that will inflict any meaningful damage because of bullet spread. The grapple blade was good for movement and countering ballistic shields, but because of how vital movement was for evading snipers and beating the shields, you basically lost without one on hand. Pump shotguns still either inflict zero damage or one shot, but I always get one shot while my opponents barely get grazed. Meanwhile, frenzy auto shotguns were so busted that you should never play this game again if you don't think of picking one up the moment you see it. DPS is insane and it has a large mag, only downside is the reload time (which you can decrease a hefty amount with mods). Medallions were neat, giving you regenerating shield in exchange for your spot on the map being revealed.

I don't want to say that cosmetics were bad this season, not at all, but I think anyone who survived the great item shop drought of December 2023 - February 2024 should be given a medal. There were some standout new skins, like the massive TMNT collab, Cell, Frieza, Raiden, Ernie the giant chicken, and some others that are decently cool. We even saw a return of John Wick to the shop after over 1,000 days of being gone, along with two new styles. However, aside from those, every other day, the item shop was absolute shit. Rick and Morty was in the shop three weeks in a row. Generic and boring skins returned every week as well, likely for the LEGO fortnite compatibility. Epic, please, I have money that I would LOVE to spend on you, all you have to do is put good items in your item shops. Even going into season 2, the shop is barely better. At least the battle pass was good, Peter and Snake are some of the best collab skins to date.

I don't know, this season had a lot of explosive moments, but overall, it had a LOT of problems. I still had fun with it, but man, snipers and ballistic shields made both long range and close range fights unbearable. Midrange fights were still good, but no hitscan sucks. The new game modes are mostly bad and I will never touch them again. Festival is fun, at least. This kind of felt like a filler season. I don't know why, but it kind of just... existed. I'll remember it for the cool collabs, but between the map and the weapon pool... I'd rather not remember the actual gameplay aspects of this season. Kinda fun while it lasted, I guess.

Shit lasted way too long like we had two festival passes at once like that's insane dawg but it was fine either way I like the cod attachment system and the new weapons and the bosses and their medallions cool new feature while this map isn't the worst and is def improvement after what the wild season did too the last map I thinks it's too big with too much space in between and not enough interesting poi's I do like Oscars mansion I called him the single furry dad the whole season so all my friends also called him and the poi that so that's pretty funny I also loved and hated how op the autoshotty was like how tf was that allowed man but yeah also broke up with my ex boyfriend this season too... anyway chat yeah decent season battlepass like a 6/10 i like hope and valeria their hot and like how hope has that cat meme as her symbol thats nice I like oscar his lego skin is funny and i like the that music pack that tiktok was going crazy over shit sounds fire all the song kicked my ass on festival so thats funny

Probably my most played season, though most of that can be attributed to Festival. Overall I enjoy the map, I like the theme and some of the major locations, and have overall enjoyed my matches on it. I also think this has been the best pass in a long time. Some skins I would definitely be using long term, especially Snake. Really my only complaints are the auto shotguns and not having enough minor locations on the map. There doesn't feel like there's a ton of depth to the map yet, I hope this is something they'll work on. Also whoever keeps adding automatic shotguns into the game needs their computer privileges revoked cause holy shit is it so boring to be killed by (and kill with).

That said most enjoyable has been Festival, I'm super happy it exists and hope it gets support for a long time, and I hope it can get more people into rhythm games. Hope the instrument support is good too. Only complaint is the monetization and how it's ruined browsing the item shop. At least only one person needs to own the songs for everyone to play but it's a steep cost for sure, and they really need to separate jam tracks into a separate shop.

The big bang season. Fortnite at its best after a very long time. Adding in contracts and bounties similar to COD Warzone helps the pacing and most of the new inclusions here are great. I don't know how to feel about the new healing/shield systems though. Tons of content thanks to Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, and LEGO Fortnite, all of which are really good. It's actually insane how much you can do in Fortnite now, and it looks like it's only gonna get better.

Also goodbye Fortnite OG, you will be sorely missed.