Yarr! Fortnite Season 8 erupts with lava and pirates
Ahoy me hearties!
Pirates and their natural meme enemies, ninjas, have brought their decade-old cyberfight to Fortnite with the launch of Season 8. Epic have once again reshaped the landscape of their free-to-play battle royale 'em up, sprouting a volcano sicking up lava. What I'm most interested to see, however, is the pirate cannons now scattered around the map, which players can use to fire boooring cannon balls or hop in themselves and fly with terrible destructive force as a human cannonball. I'll take that foolishness, thank you.
First, pirates vs. ninjas vs. fireman:
That lad's the 'Prisoner', the hot-headed fella who kicked this whole volcano thing off when he escaped from his icy prison. Yes, Fortnite updates tell Saturday morning cartoon stories. With real-world guns.
What this all mostly means is that the map is reworked, with a honking great volcano popping out like a big zit in the North-East corner around where Wailing Woods was and spewing a torrent of lava. Some old places are gone, replaced with hot springs and mock-Mesoamerican ruins and a lagoon with a pirate town and ship. Volcanic vents spew hot air that can boost you up into the sky. The actual lava itself doesn't hurt that much, dealing one damage on a touch and bouncing you up.
Sadly, Season 8 is the end of the road for my favourite Fortnite vehicle, the shopping trolley. Also gone: the lousy Stormwing plane, the all-terrain kart, the Sneaky Snowman, and the Chiller Grenade. The higher tiers of assault rifle are more rare too, though that's more a balance thing.
See the Fortnite v8.00 patch notes for more on it all.
A new Season means a new Battle Pass with new outfits and doodads for players to unlock. The paid Battle Pass has better and more stuff, as ever, though players did have a chance to earn it for free at the end of Season 7. Here, this vid shows some of that:
