GAME 61: FORTNITE CHAPTER 5: SEASON 2 (PS5): 100% COMPLETE

Another day, another Fortnite season. This time, the second installment in the fifth Chapter. Previously, the evil Society opened Pandora's Box, unleashing the Greek Gods... and Zeus isn't happy with humanity. Thus, a war has kicked off on the island between mortals, Gods, and the few deities who defect to ensure our victory over Zeus' wrath.

If you saw my previous post on last season, a major problem I had with Chapter 5 is its rather lame map. Many named locations are very samey, just being swaths of the same looking house, and the same looking villages. There isn't a lot of variety starting out. But the unleashing of Pandora's Box helped add some much needed variety to where you'll be dropping, boys.

Places like Mount Olympus and the Underworld provide not only a great sense of majesty, but a variety of unique boss battles that provide unique perks, replacing the Society bosses from last season. Additionally, new items were added to Battle Royale, some amazingly awesome mythics. Zeus' Thunderbolt, the Wings of Icarus, Hades' chains, all fantastic weapons that not only add to the theming, but are all spectacular in terms of their presence and gameplay potential.

It's too bad they got replaced with Avatar's Element Bending, but I digress. All these unique additions, on top of having more friends to play this game with means I've had a better time in Battle Royale than last Season. And I only hope that the more seasoned me and my group get at this game, it only picks up from here as the island continues to diversify.

This actually segues well into the crossover element of Fortnite. You know, the true reason I play this game. And this time... Well, I hope you like Avatar. Cause unlike the additions of Metal Gear, Family Guy and TMNT from last season which provided a strong variety of brands of varying tones... Nickelodeon shelled out hard to make sure Avatar is the only fictional franchise with any major presence this season.

Whether it's The Last Airbender or The Legend of Korra, take your pick, it's all you got. By all means, Avatar being in the game is not a bad thing. The representation is great with the ability to Bend, the attention to detail on the cosmetics and whatnot.

But the lack of variety here is really apparent here, and if you're not an Avatar fan, there isn't much for you here if you're looking to see what beloved character joins the squad of Reality Zero.

Will give an honorable mention though to the additions to Drax, Mantis and Young Adult Groot though. While they don't add new flare to the Battle Royale mode like Avatar, the addition of more Guardians characters, including the loophole to help Groot escape Battle Pass exclusivity hell helps make this season feel more standout by adding characters from one of my favorite movies into the mix.

Other than that, the only other franchises that has any new additions is Coachella and Nike. Uh... yaaaay?

Well, there is one other major crossover that happened in between Chapter 1 and 2, and that's Fortnite Festival Season 2. This time Lady Gaga joins the fray in the new Festival Pass... and that's about it. Aside from a few cosmetic changes to the mode, Fortnite Festival is still basically the same as ever. But there is some nice variety in the music added this time around. In addition to Gaga, we have music from Soundgarden, Gorillaz, Blink-182 and Selena Gomez that continue to ensure there will be music for almost every taste in due time.

In terms of LEGO Fortnite, a major addition to that game is the long awaited vehicle update, allowing for the implementation of steering wheels for controllable vehicles and even entire environments. I think this is a great addition that helps this game reach its full potential, especially with how wide and sprawling the open world is. If this keeps up, LEGO Fortnite can start looking less like a tech demo, and more of a fully fledged competitor to other sandbox games like Minecraft.

The only other major mode is Rocket League. Aside from making the game easier for certain ranked missions, there isn't much in terms of additions that I can tell in terms of official content and mechanics. However, the addition of UEFN user generated content allows for a stronger variety of creative maps from the community to endlessly diversify what to race in. From races where you travel through dimensions to goddamn Crisis City, there is no shortage of race tracks that get bigger and bigger by the day.

So yeah, that's Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 so far. In the end, a solid expansion to the Fortnite metaverse or whatever Epic wants to call it. But they really need to think of a better way to balance their crossovers for future seasons.

Coachella and Nike at once, really?

GAMES FINISHED: 61

GAMES COMPLETED: 56