2025 was Fortnite's most topsy-turvy 12 months ever with hovering peaks, depressing lows, and a raging AI debate
For a hearty chunk of 2025, Fortnite was fallow.
It might be an exaggeration to say the sport’s subreddit was pure distress between June and November, however there was greater than sufficient gloom to go round: the novelty of a Star Wars cameo rapidly wore off and the subsequent two seasons, Tremendous and Shock ‘N Superior, felt bland and messy. When gamers lastly departed Oninoshima, Chapter 6’s map, it was a sloppy soup of disconnected concepts, with First Order bases straddling bug-fighting navy outposts and buildings from feudal Japan.
I struggled to persuade my regular teammates to put in updates over this era, not to mention dedicate a night to the sport. I wasn’t alone—the height participant rely repeatedly dipped under 1.5m over this era, which might’ve appeared unthinkable a 12 months in the past.
On the finish of that Simpsons mini season, the Chapter 6 finale Zero Hour drew over 10 million gamers: greater than triple the height participant rely of any recreation on Steam, ever. Fortnite is clearly nonetheless culturally related, even when a few of its veteran gamers have migrated elsewhere.
And Chapter 7 is, thus far, refreshing. It has a balanced loot pool of sturdy weapons together with three stable shotguns, distinctive areas with hidden secrets and techniques, and a smattering of the cartoonish oddities that make Fortnite particular, such because the DeLorean automobile that transports you again in time to search out weapons from earlier chapters. Participant counts tick again up.
I am hopeful that as we transfer into 2026, the remainder of Chapter 7 will proceed to shock us. Its overarching theme—the West Coast and Hollywood—is broad sufficient to tie a number of seemingly disparate ideas collectively. There are only a few video games the place South Park characters might conceivably dance with James Bond with out breaking the fiction, however each are rumored collaborations (I am imagining a slapstick South Park shotgun and an outlandish Bond gadget, like a pen that fires an explosive dart, shaking up the meta).
Practically a decade into Fortnite, Epic has proven that it’s nonetheless prepared to take massive artistic dangers, and that’s promising. For Chapter 7 the studio added ragdoll physics and self-revive, reset gold between every match and made a number of the reboot vans—the place you may respawn downed teammates—driveable, so you may chuck your allies in and scoot away.
Every of these by itself might have derailed the brand new season’s begin. Every, not less than in my eyes, has labored. I really like that merchandising machines really imply one thing now, and gobbling gold from a money register can genuinely remodel your loadout.
So, low troughs, excessive peaks. Little question some followers enter 2026 filled with optimism whereas others, particularly anyone who hasn’t dived into Chapter 7 but, may really feel they’re executed with Fortnite.
However I would additionally perceive in case your overriding emotions about Fortnite had nothing to do with the loot pool or map, and also you’re as an alternative simply exasperated about Epic’s insistence on generative AI.
‘Would not belong in Fortnite’
Mollie wrote earlier this week that builders are “limit-testing” gamers with more and more egregious types of gen AI which can be each boring and damaging. Epic Video games is a primary offender: CEO Tim Sweeney has insisted that “AI shall be concerned in almost all future manufacturing”. Suspected AI artwork and music has already aggravated gamers in Chapter 7, as Jody wrote at first of this month (it needs to be identified that one of many suspected AI artworks didn’t, the truth is, use AI).
Gen AI in Fortnite would not divide gamers, it unites them. In a Reddit ballot, greater than 80% of respondents, or almost 4,000 individuals, stated gen AI “would not belong in Fortnite”, a recreation that makes billions a 12 months and will afford to bathe artists and musicians with precise gold V-bucks.
I am satisfied there’s nothing for Fortnite to achieve. Gen AI can solely hurt this group. If Tim Sweeney actually believes most video games shall be produced with AI, then having it in Fortnite gives no draw, no differentiation—it could actually solely drive gamers away, as I am certain it already has. “I actually hope there’s sufficient backlash from the group to have them change all of the AI-generated slop to precise art work executed by actual artists,” wrote one closely upvoted Redditor.
It is left me with an uncomfortable style as 2025 attracts to a detailed.
And it is a reminder that Fortnite is, as at all times, difficult. Thrilling. Infuriating.