Every year, I spend April counting down the days until Fortnite‘s Star Wars crossover event in May. Like many, I was excited about this year’s collab, but after spending time in-game with it, many players have slammed the update as “boring” and “lame.”
With Disney purchasing a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games back in February, expectations were high when it came to their first big collaboration as partners. While we did get some mega LEGO Fortnite additions and the arrival of Chewbacca, the event hasn’t felt as grand as previous editions, and fans have noticed.
Posted on the official Fortnite subreddit, player Rudniy explained that the last chapter’s crossover had “four unique lightsabers and interesting abilities on each of them,” while this year we got a “rather weak crossbow and a single Darth Vader saber.”
“I’m not a fan of Star Wars, but I was waiting for the collab just because I wanted to get the same fun from the game, how it was last chapter,” they wrote. “But I got a total disregard for the Battle Royale mode. At the same time, I can’t explain it any other way except for laziness. You already have all the assets ready. Just put them in the game for a week at least. What’s super complicated about this for a big company like Epic?”
Nflfan32 agreed, saying: “Most of the effort went in the Star Wars collab this time around went into LEGO Fortnite. There’s a lot to do in that mode. But I agree, the Battle Royale mode is lacking severely. The lightsaber isn’t even worth picking up.”
As for why this Star Wars event was lacking, WraiSK surmised that it “was mostly because of the Avatar event that ended just before,” saying that with Mythic items like the Thunderbolt of Zeus and the Chains of Hades already in the game, more lightsabers and Force abilities would have made the gameplay “pretty weird.”
While that may have been the case, I think it still would have been better than what we ended up with. I jumped on early this week to complete Quests, but ended up jumping off as soon as I finished them as I wasn’t enjoying the event that much. At one point I had both a Wookie Bowcaster and a Stormtrooper laser pistol, but ended up ditching them as I felt they were putting me at a disadvantage against players who had normal guns.
Perhaps this crossover just came too early in Disney and Epic Games’ new partnership, but fans will be expecting more when it happens for Star Wars day next year.
