Fortnite seasonal events
Fortnite is a free-to-play video game platform developed by Epic Games. Fortnite originally was developed as the cooperative player-versus-environment survival game, Fortnite: Save the World, released in July 2017. The game's development shifted significantly following the beta release of the Fortnite Battle Royale in September 2017, a battle royale game where 100 players compete to be the last player standing. After dropping from an airborne Battle Bus onto an island featuring several points of interests, players gather various weapons and gear. During a round of gameplay, a harmful storm front periodically shrinks while moving across the map, drawing players into smaller areas on the island.
This new mode proved exceptionally popular, drawing large numbers of players. With Fortnite Battle Royales success, Epic expanded the Fortnite platform to include other games and user-created modes built atop the Unreal Engine and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite system.
Since December 2017, Fortnite has included seasonal content purchasable via the battle pass, with various cosmetic rewards. Each season lasts for two to three months. Starting towards the end of the third season in April 2018, Epic began introducing a narrative structure to their seasons, to explain changes to the island and to introduce new licensed cosmetic items. Fortnite has conducted continuous collaborations, such as with [The Walt The Walt Disney Company|Disney Company|Disney], Marvel, and DC Comics themed seasons.
By 2025, the Fortnite platform supported the Epic-developed games Fortnite Battle Royale, Fortnite: Save the World, Lego Fortnite, Fortnite Festival, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Ballistic, along with user-created games in Fortnite Creative and Fall Guys.
Background
To monetize the game, Epic Games had built an in-game storefront to offer cosmetics in the form of character skins, emotes, and other customization items for the player to use with their game avatar for Fortnite Battle Royale, using "V-Bucks" as the form of in-game currency to make these purchases. In December 2017, Epic Games introduced a purchasable battle pass that featured numerous customization items earnable through gameplay, along with V-Bucks. The battle passes are time-limited and can only be completed during the current Chapter, typically over three to four months, with Chapter 1 representing all content from September 2017 to the launch of the Chapter and battle pass system in December 2017.Initially, each Chapter brought about changes to the layout of the island. With the launch of Season 4 in May 2018, Epic Games used a series of in-game events to tease a narrative structure that would be used for all future seasons, and used further in-game events to explain changes to the island's map. Chief creative officer Donald Mustard explained that the idea of including narrative had been part of the concept of Fornite Battle Royale from the start, but because the game is primarily a multiplayer game, determining how to introduce story element had been difficult. Epic found that driving toward large, end-of-chapter events would lead to changes in the island in the next season.
Prior to the start of Chapter 2 in October 2019, Epic also introduced character skins and cosmetics based on licensed characters. Since then, Epic has broken the storyline into Chapters grouping several seasons, with each season adding further crossover content from other licensed properties.
Seasonal content
Chapter 1
| Season | Period | Description | Collaborations |
| Season1 | Battle Royale: September December 2017 OG: December 2024 January 2025 | Retroactively considered the 1st season of the 1st chapter upon the start of the chapter's second season. | |
| Season2 | Battle Royale: December 2017 February 2018 OG: January March 2025 | Medieval themed. The battle pass, which initially had 70 tiers, was introduced. A mid-season update added 5 new locations, including Tilted Towers. | |
| Season3 | Battle Royale: February April 2018 OG: March June 2025 | Space exploration themed. The Battle Pass was increased from 70 tiers to 100. During the season, players had observed shooting stars crossing the Island, which later became small meteorites that struck the surface. A larger meteor also became visible, beginning a crash course towards the Island. | |
| Season4 | Battle Royale: May July 2018 OG: June August 2025 | Superhero themed. Superhero and villain bases appeared on the Island, later revealed to be part of a movie set. For a limited time, players could play as or fight against Thanos as part of a collaboration event with Marvel. The large meteor wiped out Dusty Depot, leaving behind a large crater. Inside, a mysterious pod was found that contained a character known as "The Visitor", who then raided the villain base to steal a prop rocket. Using meteor remnants from the crater, the Visitor turned the prop into a real rocket, which launched and created a massive interdimensional rift above the Island. | |
| Season 5 | Battle Royale: July September 2018 OG: August October 2025 | The next few days following the rocket launch saw the rift growing increasingly larger, bringing in objects from other realities while also causing some native items to vanish. One of these items, a Durrr Burger head, ended up in the real world. The southeastern corner of the map was turned into a desert, and smaller rifts began to appear as a new gameplay feature, teleporting players into the sky. Near the end of the season, the massive rift closed, but not before transporting a large purple Cube to the Island. This Cube, nicknamed "Kevin" by the players, rolled around the Island before sinking into Loot Lake, leaving behind a trail of corruption. | |
| Season 6 | Battle Royale: September December 2018 OG: October November 2025 | Corruption themed. The island at the center of Loot Lake rose into the sky due to the effects of the Cube, which traveled to multiple locations across the larger Island before returning to Loot Lake and opening a portal in the sky, allowing hostile "Cube Monsters" to appear on the Island. In a live event, the overloaded Cube exploded, transporting everyone to a realm known as the "In-Between". A rift-shaped Butterfly appeared, which returned the players back onto the Island. Loot Lake had been mostly restored to normal, with the exception of the appearance of tiny landmasses. Before the end of the season, a large iceberg was spotted on the southwestern corner of the Island. | |
| Season 7 | December 2018 February 2019 OG: December 2025 March 2026 | Winter themed. The iceberg collided with the Island, blanketing a third of the map in snow. The iceberg itself began to thaw as the season progressed, revealing a large castle inhabited by the Ice King, who then cast a spell that unleashed a winter storm across the entire Island. At the end of the season, the Ice King's prisoner escapes and creates a large volcano on the northeast corner of the map, reclaiming his powers of the Fire King. The volcano's appearance causes earthquakes that rocked the Island, creating fissures in the ground. | |
| Season 8 | February May 2019 | Pirate themed. After the volcano had drastically altered the landscape of the Island in the northeast, digging sites were established that would later uncover a Vault underneath Loot Lake. Over time, the Vault gained power through the use of five mysterious runes that acted on their own accord. In the meanwhile, Thanos returned for another limited-time Marvel event. In the "Unvaulting" live event, players entered the Vault to vote on one of six items to be reintroduced into the game. Inside, the Vault houses the Zero Point, an orb of pure energy created by the Big Bang, serving as the core of all of reality. After the Drum Gun won the vote, the volcano erupted, scattering debris in the air which would ultimately destroy Tilted Towers and Retail Row, and cause damage to the iceberg. | |
| Season 9 | May July 2019 | Futuristic themed. The locations that were destroyed by the volcanic eruption were reconstructed with futuristic technology through the use of the Zero Point's power, with Tilted Towers becoming Neo Tilted and Retail Row becoming Mega Mall. The damage to the iceberg caused a monster known as the Devourer to escape into the waters surrounding the Island. With the help of the Zero Point's guardian Singularity, drones inside the volcano's caldera constructed a giant mech called the "Mecha Team Leader". In a live event, Mecha activated and engaged the Devourer, but ended up getting overpowered. Severely damaged, Mecha was forced to pull the Zero Point out of the Vault to regain power before using a sword hidden in Neo Tilted to kill the Devourer. Mecha flew off into space, leaving the Devourer's corpse and a severely damaged Zero Point behind, which exploded at the end of the season. | |
| Season X | August October 2019 | Time travel themed. The Zero Point's explosion caused a shift in space-time on the Island, bringing the previously destroyed Dusty Depot to the present. As a result of Dusty Depot's return, the meteor that destroyed it was frozen in time in the present. A character named "The Scientist" emerged from the meteor, who was part of a group known as "the Seven" alongside the Visitor. To bring the remaining members of the Seven to the Island, the Scientist created rift zones across the Island, bringing in regions from other universes. In "The End" finale event, the Scientist launched a rocket from Dusty Depot, with each rift zone opening to allow the remaining six rockets to travel through. The seven rockets unfroze the meteor and took it through another rift, positioning it directly above the Zero Point. The meteor descended and struck the Zero Point, creating a black hole that consumed the Island, leaving the entire game unplayable. Following the event, players could enter the Konami code to play a minigame. |
Special events
Non-gameplay related promotional events have included:- EDM artist Marshmello held a virtual concert in the Pleasant Park location on February 2, 2019, across all game servers, estimated to have had over 10 million players watching it live.
- On December 14, a special preview of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released at the Risky Reels location, hosted by Geoff Keighley, with a special guest appearance by director J. J. Abrams, along with Ben Schwartz as FN-143, a Stormtrooper from the First Order, which also featured the character of Emperor Palpatine in a voice segment that was referred to in the film's opening crawl, which marked the start of the Star Wars collaboration event.
- Travis Scott performed a virtual "Astronomical" tour in support of his 2018 album Astroworld within Fortnite on multiple live concerts between April 23 and 25, 2020, including the premiere of a new song, "The Scotts", featuring Kid Cudi, who is one-half of the super-duo of the same name. The first performance on April 23 was estimated to have drawn over 12.3 million players to watch, while a total of 27.7 million unique viewers cumulatively watched the concerts. Along with these concerts, the event included new cosmetics based on Scott for in-game purchase. Scott also released Fortnite-inspired Cactus Jack products such as action figures and lunchboxes for the event.
- Diplo performed a live Major Lazer concert along with Jordan Fisher in the new "Party Royale" game mode on May 1, 2020, to test out that mode, while a multi-part concert by Dillon Francis, Steve Aoki, and Deadmau5 was held on May 8 to celebrate the full release of the "Party Royale" game mode.
- A trailer for Christopher Nolan's Tenet was first shown in the "Party Royale" game mode before releasing to other digital services on May 21, 2020. In June 2020, Fortnite announced that it would livestream one of three Nolan films, Inception, Batman Begins, and The Prestige, depending on the region, through its "Movie Nite" event within "Party Royale". Epic Games partnered with Nolan and Warner Bros. to secure distribution rights in different languages and countries.
- BTS premiered their dance choreography music video for "Dynamite" in the "Party Royale" game mode on September 22, 2020. It also featured the Tropical Remix version of the song.
- J Balvin performed a live concert in the "Party Royale" game mode on October 31, 2020, premiering a new song titled "La Luz". Anyone who attended the concert could get a special J Balvin style for the Party Trooper outfit. The concert was recorded using extended reality technology.
- Epic launched a short animated film festival within the "Party Royale" mode in February 2021, called "Short Nite". It would later return in July 2021, then later as Creative experiences for both the entire festival and the individual short films in October 2021 as "Shortnitemares" and May 2022 during a limited time window for the latter two.
- Ariana Grande performed virtually as the headline act of the "Rift Tour" in August 2021.
- The Kid Laroi performed virtually at his concert "Wild Dreams" as a Creative experience in January 2023 during a limited time window.
- Metallica performed at their virtual concert "Fuel. Fire. Fury." as an UEFN experience on June 22 and 23, 2024, during six limited-time windows over the course of the two days, with a special "encore" showing from August 2 to 5. In addition to the concert, Metallica music and themed cosmetics were added across Battle Royale, Fortnite Festival, Rocket Racing and Lego Fortnite; a Metallica-themed weapon inspired by "Ride the Lightning" and a location based on the M72 World Tour were added to Battle Royale for a limited time.
- Disney livestreamed a segment of the 2024 D23 Entertainment Showcase in-game as a UEFN experience to announce upcoming collaborative content with Epic Games for Fortnite, which included the Marvel-themed "Absolute Doom" season for Battle Royale in addition to numerous other cosmetics from various Disney intellectual properties. According to Disney, 1.2 million players watched the event live. Those who attended received a Peelverine plush as an in-game cosmetic for free.
- Karol G performed in the "Karol G: MSB Fortnite" UEFN experience in August 2024, to promote the album Mañana Será Bonito and the Bichota Season mixtape. Those who attended received a Karol G-themed bass guitar for Fortnite Festival.
- The "Chapter 2 Remix" season in November 2024 kicked off with a live performance from Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice in New York City's Times Square inside the TSX Stage, which was simultaneously broadcast in Battle Royale and Zero Build. Eminem, who previously appeared as the headline act for the "Big Bang" event, along with Juice Wrld, joined Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice for the season's concert finale event at the end of the month. All four rappers were prominently featured throughout the season.
- The "Daft Punk Experience" launched In September 2025. Billed as the biggest Fortnite musical event so far, it was made in collaboration with Daft Life. The introductory sequence to the event, set to Daft Punk's 2013 song Contact was created by Epic Games and Magnopus in collaboration with Daft Punk's creative director Cédric Hervet; an official music video for "Contact" was released in November 2025 incorporating the visuals from this introductory sequence.
- With the launch of Chapter 7 in late November 2025, Epic Games and director Quentin Tarantino worked together to create The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge, an eight-minute animated short film based off a cut scene from Tarantino's film Kill Bill: Volume 1. The short, which was animated in Unreal Engine using Fortnite character models, sees Gogo Yubari's sister Yuki hunting down the Bride as revenge for her sister's death, with Uma Thurman reprising her role via motion capture technology. The short film first premiered at a special event held by Epic Games at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles on November 19. It was then released to the public via an in-game event on November 30.