Fortnite Battle Royale will return to a more typical experience once the current Simpsons mini-season ends at the end of November, according to a blog posted on the Fortnite Status Twitter account, with the game slated to return to 100-player rounds and a much roomier island.
The launch of Fortnite’s Simpsons-themed mini-season at the beginning of November introduced some dramatic changes to the rhythm of Battle Royale matches, thanks largely to the size of the map. The new Springfield island covers about half the land area that the Chapter 6 island did, with the mode temporarily supporting 80 players instead of 100. That’s made the island extraordinarily dense with players, and it’s been tough to land in any named location at the start of a match without bumping into an opponent trying to grab the same chest you’re going for.
The blog said that fundamental shift in the flow of matches was an experiment.
“Here’s something different: this season’s BR is 80 players instead of 100 on the more compact map. The vibe so far? Faster rotations, more meaningful fights, and less time running across empty fields. This is an experiment–we plan to return to 100 players next season–but we wanted to see what happens when we concentrate the action.”
That wasn’t the only big piece of news we got from this blog. For this Saturday and Sunday only, Epic is adding two Simpsons-themed weapons–the Deodorant Applicator, and Bart’s Slingshot–to the Battle Royale loot pool. This is another unusual thing Epic is trying during this mini-season, as the company debuted those weapons last weekend in Delulu mode.
Fortnite’s Simpsons season is live until November 29, when Chapter 7 will begin.
