‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ Winter Update Will Require ‘Battle Pass’ To Earn Holiday-Themed Rewards
Fornite: Battle Royale will celebrate the holidays with a planned Thursday update on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The multiplayer shooter will soon start its second season, and Epic Games is taking a distinctly different approach towards players receiving holiday-themed items.
Update 1.11 will be delivered to Fortnite: Battle Royale for all platforms Thursday morning. Epic Games announced the game will be taken offline at 10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT to deploy the patch. There’s no estimate on how long the game will be unavailable beyond “a short time.”
The update signals the start of Fortnite Battle Royale Season 2 and loads of new cosmetic loot. There is a catch this time, however. Players will need to purchase a Battle Pass upfront to be able to earn the new seasonal items.
Purchasing Battle Pass unlocks the ability to earn over 65 rewards between December 14 and February 20 with a mix of character skins, emotes, gliders, and more. Rewards are earned each time a player levels up by earning experience via completing matches and challenges. Epic Games estimates it will take 75 to 150 hours of play to earn everything.
The teaser image shared at the top of this article shows Gingerbread Men and Elf skins along with updates to the island to give it a Christmas feel.
The cost of the Battle Pass has already been set to 950 V-bucks, per a forum post from Epic Games. This essentially equates to $10 in terms of real-world money, as the currency exchange Fortnite is $10 equals 1,000 V-bucks.
The cost of the Battle Pass is obviously to offset the cost of producing all the season items and to continue to fund the otherwise free and immensely popular Fortnite: Battle Royale game mode. Still, it is an interesting approach following the Halloween Event, where individual skins were sold at prices between $5 and $20 based on their rarity.
Of course, V-bucks can also be earned from the base Fortnite PVE game. However, it requires a purchase of at least $40 to get started while Battle Royale is free.
Other Changes
The 1.11 update also brings various other changes and fixes to Fortnite: Battle Royale. Players will be able to loot a Snowball Grenade Launcher during matches and equip up to six emotes to use via the “B” button on the keyboard or by pressing down on a controller’s D-pad.
Epic Games has also added animations for sliding down cliff sides, which should present some interesting gameplay opportunities. Meanwhile, players will be able to see the expected trajectory of grenades when throwing them and Epic Games has made further tweaks to the inventory user interface and Fortnite: Battle Royale’s performance.
You can view the full list of changes in the official patch notes.
