The new season of Fortnite started earlier today and brought a new round of surprise changes. The most titanic one to drop? A new two-player mech called the B.R.U.T.E.




The new vehicle is showcased in a trailer for Fortnite Season 10 (or X, as they’re calling it).

An official blog post outlining the seasonal changes to Fortnite Battle Royale and the game’s other modes. It promotes the newest $10 Battle Pass for the game, which as always will enable players to unlock a large number of cosmetic upgrades. The post notes the Battle Pass’ addition of missions: “unlock rewards by completing a series of thematic objectives that will send you on adventures across the Island.” We’re not yet sure how these differ from Battle Pass challenges but will know more once we’ve had a chance to check out the season’s content.


(Update 10:07am—Missions are themed challenges available to premium battle pass purchasers. They also have“prestige” versions, with more rewards that can be unlocked once the regular challenges are completed. Daily challenges have been replaced by Limited-Time missions, which an Epic representative on the Fortnite Reddit explained are “the replacement for Dailies and... will count for all past Challenges requiring dailies and will not require the Battle Pass.” Epic’s senior PR rep Nick Chester further clarified, “ As part of the Limited Time Mission, a new objective will unlock daily at 9AM Eastern. Players will have a week to complete these objectives. They will then be replaced by a new set of Limited Time Mission objectives. All players now have 70 unique objectives to complete over the course of the season, and can expect free events throughout the season with additional rewards.”

Earlier this morning players were concerned about what the absence of daily challenges would mean for those trying to complete the battle pass without paying for it, as well as for the purchasable Breakpoint pack, which requires daily challenges to complete.)

Fortnite studio Epic is hyping changes to the battle royale game’s map, which includes the return of old locations. Screenshot : Epic Games

As for the mech, it looks powerful and invites comparisons to the titans in Titanfall, the Respawn-developed series shooter series that led to this year’s Apex Legends battle royale game. While Apex is set in Titanfall’s world, it doesn’t (yet?) have titans. A developer on that game told Game Informer in June that the studio had prototyped adding them to the game but had found that they were either too powerful or, when balanced for a fair battle royale fight, didn’t feel good enough. Regardless, Fortnite now has something like them.




Fortnite’s own players are curious how the B.R.U.T.E. will play. Discussion about the mech in the YouTube comments under the new season’s trailer is already full of concern that it’ll be overpowered and imbalance the game. Whether it is will be more clear once players jump into this season and give everything a try.

We’ll have more on Fortnite’s new season as we give it a try, too.