Fortnite fans who love those sweet, weekly challenges see season nine approaching with a single question in mind: What will Battle Pass challenges look like? Epic Games had a lot of time to work on the season nine weekly challenges, and that certainly gets our hopes up for some big changes in how they work.
Fortnite’s weekly challenges have been following the same formula for some time. There are 10 sets throughout a season, seven per week. Three challenges are free for everyone, while four are exclusive to owners of the premium Battle Pass. As the season gets close to its seventh or eighth week, players can unlock that season’s exclusive skin by completing a certain number of weekly challenges, such as season eight’s Ruin skin.
But Epic seems to be running out of creativity for some of these challenges. The developer seems to be using them to make sure players spend more time on Fortnite, like with five-stage challenges that can only be completed one at a time. This is boring, unnecessary, and becomes an barrier that players still accept to progress through the Battle Pass and unlock items.
Here’s what Epic can do to improve challenges for Fortnite players in season nine.
Get rid of progressive challenges
Progressive challenges are the ones that come in stages. Players can only complete one stage per match, which forces them to play more matches to complete a single challenge. For instance, if you find where a treasure map points, like season eight, week 10 in Junk Junction, why can’t your character use that knowledge in the same match and uncover it? Why do you have to play five matches to complete a challenge where each step simply asks you to land at a named location?
Removing the progressive side of challenges and making them like some others in season eight, such as week seven’s “Visit Junk Junction and The Block in a single match” (which is still a three-stage challenge) would let players choose whether they want to go all-in for their tasks in a single match or play them one step at a time.
Don’t expect this to change, though. This could reduce the number of matches a person plays, and no developer wants people playing their game less often or for less time.
Make secret Battle Stars and banners more accessible
In season eight, players could only get these secret items when they finished off a certain number of sets of weekly challenges. Players can only pick up week 10’s banner, for example, if they’ve finished off all 70 weekly challenges in season eight.
We get that these are made as a sort of reward for players who’ve spent more time working on the Battle Pass. But instead, they should simply be extra help for those who have trouble moving up the tiers of the Battle Pass. Make each of them available weekly to all players, or at least players with the premium Battle Pass, and let them grab the items regardless of how many challenges they’ve completed. And just like the last point, don’t expect this to change due to the same reason.
Explore gameplay through challenges
Players already have challenges of dealing damage with certain weapons, but Epic could also create tasks in which players can’t use a certain kind of weapon. Something like “reach top 50 without firing an assault rifle” could be very challenging for less-experienced players, and “reach top 10 without firing a shotgun” could be a real struggle for experienced players.
We’re expecting season nine to last over 12 weeks instead of the usual 10, since Epic revealed the Fortnite World Cup Finals that will take place from July 26 to 28 and be in season nine. That means we’ll probably have Overtime challenges or even a 12-week Battle Pass for the first time. Epic has plenty of time to make challenges less boring, more accessible, and more interesting for everyone.
