Following the short clip, players voted on their favorite lightsaber, and then the voice of the Emperor warned of “the day of the Sith” as the ships took off again. After that, players were given their preferred lightsaber color and a giant duel broke out between all players.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Image for article titled Fortnite's Star Wars Event Was Weird, But Cool

(Update 3:20pmFortnite now has challenges involving lightsabers, which appeared in players’ inventories following the event. Lightsabers are in-game weapons that are found in chests. They can parry bullets, a cool feature I discovered shortly before I was eliminated.)

Advertisement

Before it was replaced by The Block in Season 7, Risky Reels has shown blips from Wreck-It Ralph and the winning entry of the Fortnite fan film contest. The drive-in made its return for Chapter 2, and for the last few weeks, it’s slowly been under construction in preparation for today’s event.

On the Star Wars side of things, Fortnite received some Star Wars skins, including a Storm Trooper and characters Rey and Finn. A Star Destroyer appeared on the map in early November, coinciding with the release of EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Players who attended today’s event received free TIE Whisper gliders.

Advertisement

The Rise of Skywalker event is Chapter 2's first in-game event since Fortnite went down following the black hole. At Thursday’s Game Awards, Epic creative director Donald Mustard reflected on how to “push the idea of what a persistent, virtual place can be.” He cited Marshmello’s in-game concert and the giant robot battle that took place shortly before the World Cup as examples of the evolution of Fortnite’s events. In his acceptance speech for the award for Best Ongoing Game, Mustard said that “the more we’re trying to experiment” with Fortnite’s world “we’re finding more and more that our goal is to try to create a metaverse, to create a place where all IP can live together...where we can create a totally new, emergent type of media.” The Star Wars event, whose allure is shared between Star Wars fandom and the lessening novelty of an event inside a video game, is certainly an example of that.

I’ll admit I’m not a big Star Wars guy—I watched the original three movies in seventh grade to impress a boy in band class, then never paid attention to them again—but it’s always fun to see how Fortnite players act when they get together to do something other than murder each other (once they get into the game, that is.)

Advertisement

Additional reporting by Zack Zwiezen