‘Fortnite’ Chapter 7 Season 2 is live, and Epic is calling it Showdown. The season came with a mostly new loot pool, which is what they had teased beforehand, along with a rivalry system that has players hunting each other down for rewards. There are also new POIs, a faction system where the community unlocks new items over time, and one player per match now gets to drive the battle bus.
A few things did carry over, like the iron pump and twin hammer shotguns, along with most healing items and porta bunkers. However, outside of those, the weapon pool is almost entirely different, and the new additions are going to change how close-range fights feel.
‘Fortnite’ Adds New And Reworked Weapon In Chapter 7 Season 2
Both the nemesis and combat ARs are back from Chapter 5, but they are hitscan now and cannot be modded. Additionally, neither has sight, so both are third-person bloom weapons. The new vector DMR hits for around 60 to 70 body damage and up to 130 on headshots, depending on rarity, though it is a projectile, so bullet travel time is a factor at range. The Thunder Burst SMG also returned as a hitscan with a laser attachment that makes it perfectly accurate.
The newly added Chaos Reloader shotgun works like the Jawa shotgun from the ‘Star Wars’ season, where it fires one shot that hits hard even to the body and then reloads on its own while you hold something else.
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You shoot once, swap to another weapon or build, and come back to it when it is ready. The Chapter 2 pistol is also back as a fully automatic option that can shred at higher rarities. For mobility, overdrive grenades are toned-down shockwaves that give unlimited sprint and negate fall damage, and a new zipline launcher lets you redeploy your glider but leaves you exposed the entire time.
Furthermore, four named POIs are gone with Dark Dominion, Frigid Fortress, Squibbity Shores, and the new Sanctuary replacing Lethal Labs, Clausy Lodge, Bumpy Bay, and Classified Canyon.
The Rivalry System And Factions Are what The Whole Season Is Built Around
The rivalry system works like bounties, but goes both ways. You and another player get marked for each other at the same time, with an icon showing roughly where the other person is. If you eliminate them, your rivalry rank goes up, and you earn tokens that can be spent at rivalry computers, which work as upgrade benches and exotic vendors combined.
Some exotics from Chapter 6 Season 2 are available there, including the shockwave rocket launcher. When someone with an active rivalry gets eliminated, they drop a pickup anyone can grab to start their own.
Before you queue up, you also pick a faction between the Foundation and the Ice King. As you complete rivalries, your faction levels up and new items get added to the loot pool for everyone, regardless of which side you are on.
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One of the items waiting to be unlocked is the Seven Gloves, which are basically the nitro fists from Chapter 5, Season 3. Dark Voyager drops a mythic Chaos Reloader, and the squid boss at Squibbity Shores drops a mythic combat AR that fires faster the longer you hold the trigger. The Ice King does not have a mythic drop yet, but Brutus’s mythic twin hammers are still available if you lift weights at Ripped Tides.
