Epic Games is preparing to launch Fortnitemares 2024, this year's edition of the Halloween event inside Fortnite. The latest gameplay trailer has provided a glimpse at the many collaborations featured in this event, leaving fans very excited about what will go live shortly.
First and foremost, Fortnitemares 2024 begins tomorrow morning after the server maintenance. The event will go live alongside version 31.40 and introduce playable characters from horror movies, such as Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Billy from Saw. Moreover, Edward Scissorhands (from Tim Burton's 1990 masterpiece film) and a couple of Marvel characters (Venom and Mephisto) are also seen. Speaking of gameplay additions coming with Fortnitemares, players can look forward to an explosive Pumpkin Launcher weapon and the so-called Boom Billy, a mini-Billy the Puppet that locks onto the nearest opponent and rides a tricycle before exploding on impact. Moreover, the Chainsaw can be used both as a weapon and as a travel method if you ram it into the ground.
Fortnitemares 2024 also adds Jigsaw's Challenge. Throughout the map, players can find monitors displaying Billy the Puppet. Upon approaching, a player can accept to start a duel with another player from another monitor. Both players participating in Jigsaw's Challenge will be wearing a Billy-inspired bear mask - which happens to be explosive. If you or your team don't defeat your target in time, the mask will explode, and you'll be eliminated. If you or your squad succeed in the objective, you will be rewarded with a Boom Billy, the unvaulted Witch Broom, and other loot.
Over seven years after its debut, Fortnite Battle Royale continues to run strong, in addition to side games like LEGO Fortnite. Of course, it also helps that the Epic Games Store successfully launched on mobile, with Fortnite once again available in Europe to iOS players.
During the recent Unreal Fest, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney stated:
I'm happy to tell you that Epic is financially sound and that Fortnite and the Epic Game Store have hit new records in concurrency and success. Fortnite hit 110 million monthly active users last holiday, an all-time peak. And this is all happening in the context of a game business that's rapidly changing in a way that we've only seen a few times in our lifetimes as game developers. It's a generational change. One of the manifestations we're seeing right now is a lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling nearly as well as expected, whereas other games are growing incredibly strong.
When you look at what's happening in the world of Fortnite, it's new and it's exciting and it's something that's never happened at this scale in the history of entertainment, with an original story that's evolving with original content and also all the world's brands participating. Musicians reaching users, Disney and Star Wars, and others all coming together to create a world-class entertainment experience that's ever-evolving and live, and that's that's really what we think that the future of gaming is about.
Fortnite will be a key component even in the upcoming Disney-themed persistent universe that Disney invested $1.5 billion in. Epic Games EVP Saxs Persson said a few days ago that players will have the opportunity to move seamlessly from Fortnite to the Disney 'metaverse' and vice versa.
