Fortnite Seasons Explained: Everything You Need to Know

Despite its recent decline in popularity, Fortnite is still a hugely popular video game with hundreds of millions of players.

Few other titles in the history of gaming can rival it and although it wasn’t the first Battle Royale in the world, it has certainly become one of the most loved titles, especially by children.

Since its release in 2017, Fortnite has had dozens of seasons, as Fortnite seasons don’t last very long.

Unlike Riot Games, Valve Corporation, and other companies, Epic Games prefers to reset the ladder frequently and give its player base good reasons to continue playing month after month.

The game itself is very addictive, but it’s even more addictive when it’s coupled with a smart competitive format.

How Fortnite Seasons Work

Fortnite seasons last for a variable number of days. Epic Games decides for each season how long it should last and announces to the players when it will end, usually toward the end of it.

This decision seems to be a smart one because it keeps everyone guessing.

Based on the pattern we are able to see, it seems that Epic Games decides to end a season when the community’s level of interest starts to drop significantly. This can happen after two, three, or even four months.

In recent years, seasons have lasted for around three months. In some cases, the duration was just two and a half months, in others it was three and a half.

There have been more than twenty seasons in total and each of them challenges the players to prove themselves.

Fortnite Seasons Timeline

Here’s a timeline of the Fortnite seasons that took place so far:

Number	Season Name	Start	End	Days
1	Season One	Oct 25, 2017	Dec 13, 2017	50
2	Season Two	Dec 14, 2017	Feb 21, 2018	70
3	Season Three	Feb 22, 2018	April 20, 2018	58
4	Season Four	May 1, 2018	July 12, 2018	73
5	Season Five	July 12, 2018	Sept 27, 2018	78
6	Season Six	Sept 27, 2018	Dec 6, 2018	71
7	Season Seven	Dec 6, 2018	Feb 28, 2019	84
8	Season Eight	Feb 28, 2019	May 9, 2019	70
9	Season Nine	May 9, 2019	Aug 1, 2019	84
10	Season X	Aug 1, 2019	Oct 13, 2019	73
11	Chapter 2 Season 1	Oct 15, 2019	Feb 20, 2020	128
12	Chapter 2 Season 2	Feb 20, 2020	June 17, 2020	119
13	Chapter 2 Season 3	June 17, 2020	Aug 27, 2020	71
14	Chapter 2 Season 4	Aug 27, 2020	Dec 1, 2020	95
15	Chapter 2 Season 5	Dec 2, 2020	Mar 15, 2021	103
16	Chapter 2 Season 6	Mar 16, 2021	June 8, 2021	85
17	Chapter 2 Season 7	June 8, 2021	Sept 12, 2021	97
18	Chapter 2 Season 8	Sept 13, 2021	Dec 4, 2021	83
19	Chapter 3 Season 1	Dec 5, 2021	Mar 19, 2022	105
20	Chapter 3 Season 2	Mar 20, 2022	June 3, 2022	76
21	Chapter 3 Season 3	June 4, 2022	Sept 17, 2022	105
22	Chapter 3 Season 4	Sept 18, 2022	Dec 3, 2022	76
23	Chapter 4 Season 1	Dec 3, 2022	?	?

As you can see, Epic Games likes to vary the duration of its Fortnite seasons and be as unpredictable as possible.

However, in 2022, it seems that the company decided to do things in cycles and stick to the 76-105 rule. It remains to be seen if they’ll keep this rule or not for the upcoming seasons.

What a New Fortnite Season Means

Epic Games likes to experiment with different possibilities. Esports in general are known to be dynamic.

A traditional sport like football or a board game like chess has the rules it had decades ago. But in esports, a game can change radically from one year to the next.

Two famous examples include League of Legends and Dota. Both of these games are updated regularly. In Dota 2, at least several times each year a big patch comes out and drastically modifies the heroes, the items, and other aspects of the game.

This means that if you want to keep your current rank, you need to dedicate a significant amount of time to restudy the game and rethink your strategies.

Of course, this is very enjoyable for the best Fortnite players, because it gives them the opportunity to fully utilize their creativity to find new ways to win.

If a hero got buffed or nerfed, that hero may no longer be viable in the meta that forms right after the new patch is released. The same goes for items.

In Fortnite, the changes may not be as dramatic, but they’re still significant and will require players to adapt.

Someone who relies quite heavily on a set of strategies that require a specific gun or some other piece of equipment will need to work really hard to find a new way of playing the game if his strategies got nerfed at the start of the season.

Likewise, a player whose strategies got buffed will be able to enjoy the advantages given to him by the new rules. Everything that he’s been working on can finally be put to good use and will give him an edge.

Not all Fortnite seasons make big changes to the game. But many of them do. And when that happens, the entire community gets galvanized.

Map Changes

In Fortnite, the entire action takes place on one map. Games like CS:GO and Call of Duty offer players a wide variety of maps to play on.

But Fortnite takes the MOBA approach, utilized by games like Dota 2 and League of Legends. The terrain always stays the same. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t be changed at all.

Epic Games likes to modify its map because it gives the company the opportunity to create new challenges for its players to solve. This kind of diversity adds significantly to the game’s replayability.

One of the main objectives in Fortnite and Battle Royale games is to gather resources and discover better gear that you can then utilize to win duels more easily.

This process depends to some extent on the player’s map knowledge. If you change the landscape, everyone needs to adapt and find new ways of playing safely.

Loot Changes

The most important element of Fortnite is the loot. The items that you can find and utilize have a huge impact on how the game is played.

Different items offer different opportunities. The ways in which you get to the most powerful loot in the game dictate the meta.

Players know what can be done at every stage of the game. And based on that, they formulate their strategy to win it. If all of a sudden you can have a tank inside the game, that changes the rules radically.

Fortnite is largely a game about obtaining the best loot as fast as possible, either by way of scavenging or by killing other players and stealing their equipment.

The goal is to become stronger at a faster pace than the other competitors. If you can do that, there’s a high chance that you will win your next duel and become even stronger.

Players who do this repeatedly reach the end game, where only a small number of players are left alive and everyone gets rewarded.

This is how you rank up in this game. Therefore, when you formulate your strategy, you need to be aware of all the loot that exists and of the ways in which it can be obtained.

Themes

New Fortnite seasons often bring new themes. The current Fortnite season might not always feature something radically different, but Epic Games is known to enjoy offering fresh content to its players.

No matter how good a game may be, if it’s stale, people will figure everything out and then start to get bored.

What keeps them hooked is a constant challenge, and a unique theme tends to offer that by taking the game in a new direction.

However, just because a Fortnite season introduces a new theme or new mechanics, doesn’t mean that the changes will persist indefinitely.

There have been cases where Epic Games introduced new elements and then removed them completely after just one season.

Ultimately, the company wants to create a balanced and enjoyable experience for its players.

To do that it needs to experiment with the possibilities, but if something doesn’t feel quite right or has failed for various reasons, Epic Games will not hesitate to roll back the changes.