For a game that once defined the live service era, Fortnite spent 2025 feeling less like a constantly evolving Battle Royale, it boasts it is and more like a rotating digital merch store. The game has always thrived on spectacle. Epic built a Battle Royale that hosted spectacular live events, brimming with engaging storylines and surprise appearances from characters you adored.
But in 2025, if you logged into Fortnite, you probably left disappointed – unless you wanted to empty your wallet on an endless amount of skins, which would have felt like paradise to you, of course. This year felt quite different in Fortnite. It wasn’t about the gameplay or the loot pool or racking up on Victory Royales anymore. It was purely about the Item Shop and an endless stream of collabs that Epic shoved down our throats.
My favorite Battle Royale title (and I’m sure if you’re reading this, it’s yours too) felt busy. Not just too much gameplay content, busy, no, no. That’s rather better if I’m being honest. It felt loud, colorful, endlessly cross promoted busy. Instead of pushing its innovative gameplay forward as Epic has always done by pushing the envelope in the Battle Royale genre, Fortnite spent the year flooding the Item Shop with collaborations while its core BR gameplay quietly became stagnant. And that’s where it all began to fall apart for me, someone who has stuck with the game since it came out in 2017.
Epic Ran Fortnite in 2025 Like a Black Friday Sale That Never F**king Ended
The enormous volume of Fortnite collabs was quite exhausting in 2025. It felt like every single week, Epic added a new franchise into the fold, demanding our attention and our V-Bucks. The game became a shopping mall where we saw the MonsterVerse (Godzilla and Kong) drop in the same month we saw Hatsune Miku drop in the game. We also got a full season dedicated to The Simpsons and Star Wars alongside Jujutsu Kaisen sorcerers. But Epic didn’t stop there – they also got Superman, Squid Game, Harry Potter, Power Rangers, Daft Punk, Back to the Future, Kill Bill, and even a Halloween with over 10 crossovers, which also included The Terrifier; yes, THAT bloody clown!
What used to feel special once back in the early days of the game now felt relentless. It was a pure nightmare for my wallet, let alone some rich kid buying V-Bucks every day. But the problem wasn’t just the addition of these collabs but rather how they were delivered to players. Earlier, whenever a huge collab dropped, it came with substantial free rewards or mini passes that felt generous. Heck, they even gave V-Bucks if you got those. But in 2025, the vibe shifted as if the game was actively whacking you with a pickaxe for not spending money. You either bought the pricey bundle or were left just as a spectator in someone else’s fever dream.
And then came the Sidekicks; not Kicks (that’s a story that I thankfully ranted enough about when 2025 began). Just when we thought the push for cosmetics couldn’t be more aggressive, they introduced this entirely new cosmetic slot. They were added as glorified pets that follow you around during a match, yet they arrived with a ridiculous price tag. I mean, 1,500 V-Bucks for a dog who just barks as I try to echolocate the enemy? I mean, seriously?
To me, it felt like a test to see how much money players would throw at the screen for a feature nobody really asked for. But wait, here’s the real kicker – to make matters worse, Epic introduced a new V-Bucks purchasing model allowing players to buy exact amounts rather than predefined stacks. They cleverly spun this as a consumer-friendly move, but anyone paying attention to it saw it for what it was. Something that removed the friction of leftover currency and encouraged even more micro-transactions for every single item that caught your eye.
I’ll be honest, I myself had been a victim of this scheme when I saw Enemy by Imagine Dragons in the Item Shop, and I was 200 V-Bucks short of purchasing it. Instead of saving my existing 300 V-Bucks, I swiped my card and bought the 200 V-Bucks without a thought. This turned the impulse buy into a science, something that Epic has now mastered. And that’s where its signature gameplay lost its charm.
In 2025, Fortnite Became the Blueprint for How Live Service Games Lose Their Souls
While Fortnite’s Item Shop looked brand new and shiny each week, its gameplay was rotting away as the island withered. The previous Chapter 6, which dominated most of 2025, will forever be remembered as the weakest era in Fortnite history, a time when innovation hit a brick wall. The loot pool was a mess of uninspired weapons. We saw a regression back to basic hitscan mechanics without any of the evolution we’ve come to expect from Epic, and the gunplay at large felt stale.
Even the Star Wars season this year, which is usually a highlight for Lightsabers for players, felt incredibly flat this time around. It lacked the punch, innovation, and creativity that previous iterations had.
Now, if you’re a Fortnite OG, compare this to the golden days of Chapter 2, where fans ate well under the leadership of Donald Mustard. Every season felt different; the map changed in meaningful ways, one season was espionage, while the other flooded the entire island, and much more. There was a narrative thread that pulled you along. Heck, even the Battle Pass menus were interactive. Remember Chapter 2 Season 2, and the Deadpool skin reveal? But in 2025, the POIs were unimaginative and forgettable, and weapon balance was all over the place, leaving players frustrated with a meta that never seemed to settle. We lost the uniqueness that Fortnite was known for.
Even the pros like Clix and Ninja reached a breaking point where they were vocal about the state of the game, criticizing buggy lobbies and the cluttered, bug-ridden loot pool (never forget the OXR season with actual bugs). Come on, Epic, when the people who play your game for a living are saying it isn’t fun anymore, it doesn’t take the entire city of Cary to realize you have a serious problem.
When the wake-up call happened, Epic tried to mix things up by introducing “Boons” in Chapter 6, but it turned out to be a mess. We all remember how great Augments were in Chapter 3. They added a layer of strategy, luck, and customization using rerolls that players loved. But Boons felt like a cheap Temu knockoff of that system, and the community disliked them instantly.
But our favorite game still didn’t fix these issues. No sir. They seemed to be more interested in pushing us toward UEFN games. Sure, they threw us a bone with modes like Blitz, Reload, and OG to inflate player numbers, but the Discover row was dominated by brainrot UGC maps. The once most advanced Battle Royale on the planet is slowly turning into a hub for Steal a Brainrot map, which is carrying the game’s CCU alone. It is tragic to see a game that used to define quality now drowning in a sea of uncurated slop.
If Epic Games had spent half the energy on gameplay that they spent on licensing deals, Fortnite would still be untouchable. Under the Donald Mustard era, there was a sense of mystery and care given to the world itself. The live events mattered. The island felt alive. If that philosophy had continued, Fortnite wouldn’t be watching No Man’s Sky take home the “Best Ongoing Game” award at The Game Awards 2025. It would still be crunching the peak player numbers of 2020.
As we look toward 2026, the path forward is clear. Epic needs to stop chasing the next big IP and start chasing the feeling of fun. We need a competitive season that rewards skill. We need a loot pool that makes sense. We need original storytelling that doesn’t rely on a Marvel character to carry the plot.
It’s time for Epic to remember that Fortnite became a global phenomenon not because it was a shopping mall for in-game cosmetics, but rather it was a brilliant game that defined the Battle Royale genre. And if they don’t, the players will finally decide in the next year that no amount of Marvel skins is worth sticking around for a game that has forgotten how to be a video game that’s played for fun, chaos, and memories with friends.
