When I found out OG Fortnite was coming back—this time with the season one map—I knew I had no other choice but to hop back on. I threw on Black Knight, the tier 70 skin from the first-ever battle pass. I equipped the Mako glider and AC-DC, the trusty pickaxe that my fifth-grade self rocked every game.
Once the game began, I descended from the Battle Bus to a place I remember better than the back of my hand. I could still recall every chest spot in Retail Row, every wooden palette in Dusty Depot and the best route from Wailing Woods to Tomato Town (for when you’re trying to skybase but the storm is hot on your tail). Even my Pleasant Park call-outs were the same: “Yo, drop tree house. I’ll drop modern and then rotate to basement.”
Finally, that gorgeous loot pool is back, with succulent golden scars, cracked bolt-action sniper rifles, the overpowered double pump that OG’s revered and everything else in between. Every weapon is broken in one way or another, just like the old days. It’s Fortnite all over again—you can carry 999 mats, and the only shield you’ll find is a big pot. As corny as it may sound, I finally felt like a kid again. For just a second, I remembered my young self bush-camping and naively learning the building mechanics that no other game had ever shown me before (besides Minecraft, of course). I remember the V-bucks I shamelessly begged my mom for and the hours I spent watching Ceeday, TSM_Myth and Ninja during their peak.
But the more games I play, the more I find myself getting one-pumped by some kid who has over 5,000 hours in Creative mode cranking 90’s—or some kid who was still in diapers when Salty Springs was an unnamed drop-spot. In every skirmish and 1v1, I get colossally clapped. Before I can fire my Revolver, the soccer skin has already built a five-star hotel and taken high ground over me. Or, more likely, I don’t interact with a real player during the whole match, only eliminating bots, and ultimately end up getting cooked in my first real fight. Game after game, I get sent back to the lobby, yearning for the forgotten feeling of that #1 Victory Royale.
In frustration, I throw my controller to the ground, close Fortnite, shut down my console, and stare at myself in the reflection of my TV. “I’m so washed,” I think. “I’m out of my prime and don’t have what it takes to keep up with these sweats anymore.” It’s not a good feeling to come back to a game I once held dear to my heart just to get mowed down by some kid who couldn’t possibly imagine the feeling of playing Fortnite at its pinnacle.
Many people feel the same and are taking it out on Epic Games, but it’s not Epic’s fault. People need to remember the reason the game fell off to begin with. Yes, the skill gap grew too wide for many casual players to get wins, and a myriad of bad updates took Fortnite out of people’s rotation, but that’s not why this “new” update feels so hollow. I might be pushing unc-status by saying the game got stale, but it’s not because of all the new modes, the new overwhelming loot pools, a never-ending item shop, or the fact that I’m not as good as I used to be. They brought all the old stuff back. What more can the developers really do?
Ultimately, the game got stale because we all grew up.
When I reach top five now, my hands don’t shake the same way they did when I was ten years old. When I get one-shot sniped at Loot Lake, I don’t get excited to ready up and play another game. Never again will I get revived by a default in 50v50 or eagerly wait for the next Fe4RLess video to drop. Back then, the dopamine rush of finding a Loot Llama or supply drop was enough to keep me coming back to the game. But Fortnite is simply no longer the game it once was—and it never will be. Gone are the days when building was a foreign concept. Gone are the days when the only conceivable collab was the Thanos update, and people called “The Reaper” John Wick—the most feared player in any lobby. Gone are the days when you’d write down your friend’s gamertag on a slip of paper, then rush home after school to hop on and see whatever new game mode Epic Games had added.
They can continue to dangle that nostalgia in front of us, sucking every last bit of love that we had for the game into a cacophony of emotes and skins. But the unfortunate reality is that the feeling of real, unfiltered OG Fortnite has been rocket-riding into the eternal storm for over half a decade.