Fortnite Chapter 2 has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. After ending Chapter 1 on the high that was Fortnite's Season X, Epic Games steadily lost a lot of good favor with fans, as Chapter 2 seasons felt inconsequential. Near world-ending events and impressive new features would be periodically brushed aside as if nothing happened, which didn't seem right.
Enter Season 8, though, and all was forgiven. It's quickly become universally loved by the Fortnite player base - not only for all the new content that it brings to the table but because it feels like a worthwhile continuation of the Season 7 plot. However, the Season 8 high had to end sooner or later, and it looks like that v18.30 update will see to that.
Fortnite v18.30 isn't all bad. Bug fixes are welcome, such as the Sideways Scythe's "Smash Attack" no longer resulting in fall damage. And the new 'Stay with Squad' feature has been rolled out to every server region now, which means everyone can keep playing with the randoms that fill your team in Duos, Trios, and Squads modes.
Season 8's war effort mechanic has also given players two new weapons to pick between - the Boogie Bomb and Combat Shotgun. If you want to see your favorite weapon return first, you'll want to get playing to ensure it's the fastest to reach 100% funding. While you're at it, you can start working on the challenges for the Cube Queen Fortnite Skin that has just been unveiled for Battle Pass holders.
Where it all falls down
The v18.30 update isn't all bad, then. Instead, the issue comes with Epic Games finally revealing what it's been hiding in the Island’s mysterious bunker since the beginning of Chapter 2, and the answer is... a bunker.
If you visit the location in-game, you’ll find the kind of IO base that we’ve already seen plenty of these past seasons - complete with the bland gray concrete walls and the occasional unusable sci-fi doohickey as decoration.
Since the beginning of Fortnite Chapter 2 over two years ago, this bunker has been a huge mystery among the community. Early guesses predicted it would be the home of Kevin the Cube or the Island’s Zero Point - important artifacts from the game’s first chapter. Perhaps it would be hiding an important NPC or the dreaded mechs that broke Season X's meta? The list went on.
While some might blame fans for getting over-hyped, this certainly feels more like an Epic Games slip-up. The company will almost certainly have been aware that Fortnite players were expecting something big, and it simply hasn't delivered on a promise that it made when it decided to present us with a locked vault for 24 months.
This kind of letdown has disappointingly become par for the course in Fortnite. Its overly convoluted story meanders with no understanding that certain reveals - such as the contents of this mystery bunker - need to have meaning for fans to care about what's going.
Fortnite desperately needs to fix its story updates - and it should start by taking a look at how Destiny 2 does it.
Eyes up, Fortnite
Destiny 2 is one of the best examples of an ongoing game in 2021. Sure, the game has its issues (the transmog system for starters). But in terms of a story that has meaningful developments each season, Destiny 2 is king.
Since Beyond Light launched late last year players have been treated to four Seasons: Season of the Hunt, the Chosen, the Splicer, and now the Lost. Each starts and ends with the most major plot points as you would expect, but each week players are incentivized to play via meaningful updates that explain how the world is steadily changing.
In Season of the Chosen, players found themselves once again at war with the Cabal, with each week giving them insight into how the war efforts were going to and contextualize the game’s activities. In the Season of the Splicer, we instead got to watch as the Last City’s leaders became less trusting and more aggressive towards the Eliksni that had sought refuge within its walls - culminating in a violent assault against them despite the assistance they were providing.
However, the best story of this year has revolved around the game’s latest NPC Guardian, Crow.
Crow is the reborn version of Uldren Sov - an awoken prince and the antagonist of the Forsaken DLC expansion. The DLC began with Uldren murdering Cayde-6 - the series’ best NPC and one of the Vanguard’s three most senior members - and ended with the player seemingly murdering Uldren out of revenge (the game cuts to black before the shot is heard so it could have been our NPC companion but many assume, us included, that we fired the shot).
As a Guardian (a character that has been restored to life by the Traveller) Uldren has no memory of his past - however, the game has constantly been teasing and delivering on how his past self's actions are not forgotten by anyone else.
In Season of the Hunt, we have to learn to trust this new ally, and in Season of the Chosen Crow is finally discovered by the Vanguard when he saves Commander Zavala’s life (one of Cayde-6’s closest allies).
Most recently with Season of the Lost, which sees the return of Queen Mara Sov (Uldrens’ sister), Crow has finally learned of the evil man he once was.
These kinds of updates and developments are what fans have wanted to see since Crow’s entrance almost a year ago, and Destiny’s writers have made sure each story beat - no matter when it happens during a season - feels meaningful and changes the world we explore.
If Fortnite wants to keep pretending that its own story has weight - and is even worthy of being developed across multiple Batman comics - it needs to start treating its own important moments with respect.
There’s still time to turn Chapter 2 around before its suspected ending in two seasons’ time, but let's hope Epic Games doesn't go out with a fizzle rather than a bang.
