Fortnite Chapter 6, Season 1: Hunters First Impressions

This new Fortnite season is my favorite in quite a few months, probably since C5,S3: Wrecked. The gameplay and ideas presented here bring an overhaul to a lot of the mechanics and systems we know and love. The theme is cohesive and smartly constructed, remaining broad and relatively open ended while also having a clear vision and focus. Epic seems to be heating up again and if the start of this season is any indicator, we could be in for a great couple months of Fortnite.

This season isn’t just cool, it’s an absolute joy to play. The new movement mechanics, the interesting new bosses and the elegant new map all contribute to an experience that feels fresh, all while maintaining Fortnite's familiar strengths. The new locations are beautiful and they all flow together so well despite the level of diversity in this map. There’s a strong mix of classic Fortnite style locales and more season-specific locales that are excellently blended together to make a fun and cohesive map.

Look at this map. It’s beautiful. Look at all the colors. The purple of the Nightshift Forest, the red mountains of Shogun’s Solitude, the rainbow fields next to Masked Meadows and the ice-desert transition at the northeast corner between Demon’s Dojo and Pumped Power. This is a really well designed and thought out map and when you’re on the ground it feels very natural. Going between these areas doesn’t break your immersion as much as maps of the past may have.

The Japanese and overall Asian cultural influences are dominant in this season overall and it’s really cool to see that reflected in the environment. Cherry blossom trees, dojos, kites…it’s a cornucopia of cultural homages that all work really well in this context. It’s always cool seeing what they come up with, but I think they outdid themselves this time. A lot of these areas feel like some of the best they’ve made in recent years. I think my favorite right now is Shogun Solitude but there’s a lot of really neat ones. The Nightshift Forest is certainly a contender considering how unique it is and the quality of firefights I get in there.

So, as demonstrated by all the pictures, they’ve gone heavy on revamping movement. Wall Kicks, Wall Scrambles, Ledge Jump and Roll Landing are all part of the arsenal now. They can almost always be trigged by starting an action, for example a jump or running at a wall, or jumping off a ledge, etc., and followed by holding a button, either X for Playstation or A for X-Box. It feels surprisingly fluid and is very accessible but I don’t find myself using them much in combat situations yet.

Here are the new weapons. Some of them are Hitscan and are really good. Some of the other ones kind of suck. For example, the Surge SMG (top left) can’t hit shit. But the Precision SMG below it is one of the funnest weapons to use in this season. The shotguns are just okay. The best one isn’t even pictured. The Fury Assault Rifle (bottom middle) is passable and I enjoy using it overall. It may not be the best roster of weapons Epic has ever given us, but it’s a fun group and it doesn’t really weigh the season down.

This is where it’s at. Look at his beautiful Typhoon sword that grants speed buff AND is lethal in close range combat. This is a must have and can easily dispose of people who don’t have one. I bet it raises your chance of winning by like 20+%. It’s that good. I love the feel and gameplay of this weapon. The moves it gives you are awesome and I feel like it’s surprisingly balanced. None of this “5 second death mash” of some other Fortnite powerups. You can fight this weapon and have a legit chance but you definitely won’t have an advantage. Which is fine. This is the feature weapon of this season. It needs to be a little OP.

I can’t say that I’m excited about 2025. I find excitement to be a precursor to disappointment or unneeded injections of reality. But I can say that Epic games does appear to have a strong gameplan heading into next season. This is as creative and cohesive as the Fortnite of old and dare I say it might be one of the best seasons in recent memory. If it keeps at this pace, it may even overcome C5,S3 Wrecked, which was doomed by the pivoting that kept occurring.

There’s obviously changes, some people will love and some people may not care for. The UI is different. Weekly quests rewards appear to be gone. The Big Hero Six crossover may not interest you. Maybe Asian cultural cribbing isn’t your thing. But for me personally, I’m just happy they’re putting in this level of effort. I mean, they’ve dropped the new OG mode, a bunch of new LEGO content, Fall Guys tie ins and now they’re adding an FPS mode called Ballistic which we will definitely discuss.. They are absolutely grinding and you have to respect it.

The point is, if you have been saying anything to the effect of “Is Fortnite any good these days?” or “Why bother turning on my console?”, you probably should know that Fortnite is good right now. And approaching Christmas, we could all use some good news. Beautiful map, fun weapons, intriguing new bosses, a cohesive and interesting aesthetic…they cooked with this one. So boot up the PS5 (or whatever you play on) and hark the herald angel sing.