This week, Epic Video games rolled out a brand new sequence of quests (previously often called challenges) in Fortnite referred to as Cipher Quests. These are solely accessible in-game for a restricted period of time (till Friday, March 10 when the occasion ends), however they’ve reignited a spark deep in my coronary heart. A deep, burning ardour for Fortnite challenges of seasons — and Chapters — previous.
You see, a great few chapters in the past, again when Fortnite’s lore was in its very primitive levels and collaborations have been a mere risk, the weekly challenges we acquired felt actually thrilling. We had secret battle stars to trace down through coordinates hidden in a loading display screen. There have been challenges requiring us to trace down particular collectibles throughout the map, time trials to finish, and flaming hoops to leap by way of. They actually leaned into what makes Fortnite properly… Fortnite. Its zany, eccentric, and tongue-in-cheek strategy to the Battle Royale style.
Alas, sooner or later just a few Chapters in the past, Epic opted to huddle all of those enjoyable challenges collectively and shove them in a darkish closet, by no means to see the sunshine of day once more. These days we get cookie-cutter quests that contain consuming particular gadgets, dealing harm with sure weapons, or racking up air time in a land automobile. Very hardly ever will we get a problem that really has you placing in your detective hat and trench coat and monitoring down cheeky gnomes or deciphering coordinates. Up till now, that’s.
You see, Fortnite’s Cipher Quests are available two flavors — Unencrypted and Encrypted. The previous is, sadly, extra generic tosh we’ve seen time and time once more by this level: Spend Bars, Get Eliminations, Injury Opponents with the Infantry Rifle or Six Shooter, Acquire Shields… you get the thought. They’re not actually all that inspiring.
The Encrypted quests, although, are a completely completely different kind of gravy. Merely put, you’re given half of a quest goal adopted by a string of numbers that it’s essential to decipher. The code that these challenges are partly comprised of was initially teased by a Fortnite tweet that was ultimately solved by none apart from everybody’s favourite existential-crisis-inducing language mannequin, ChatGPT.
Whereas it’s not taken too lengthy for the Fortnite neighborhood to determine precisely how the cipher works — it’s not fairly a straight translation of 1=A, 26=Z, and so on. — it has at the very least added some intrigue and thriller to the mundane mechanic we’ve grown accustomed to over the previous few Chapters.
Whereas utilizing the Fortnite Cipher has been enjoyable to make use of and decide what we’ve to do, the precise goals themselves haven’t been all that inspiring. The primary required you to work together with a desk in a sure location (Examine the Wall Beneath the Japanese Constructing), one other tasked us with utilizing a sprig in a particular location and one other was interacting with a pc (Decrypt the Sign Beneath the Snowbank). None of that are precisely the wild treasure hunts we used to embark on, however hey, it at the very least looks like Epic’s making an attempt one thing just a little bit new, and we are able to’t be mad at that.
Deep down, I do know the times of searching down secret Battle Stars are lengthy behind us. I do know I’ll in all probability by no means emote at Forbidden Dance Signal places, or find and dig up gnomes because of their relatively eerie guffawing once more. In any case, the easy challenges we’ve acquired now have come about for a motive. To maintain the plenty who wish to grind out the Battle Go as quick as doable pleased, with minimal obstruction to making sure they get their cash’s price. However certainly, there’s a center floor to be discovered between boring and repetitive quest varieties, and collect-a-thons, and overly sophisticated or cryptic quests that may permit everybody to be pleased.
These Cipher Quests, irrespective of how fleeting the occasion could also be, do give me some hope for the way forward for Fortnite’s quest system. With Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 2 as a result of arrive subsequent week, there’s hope that we may even see a change to weekly quests. C’mon Epic, convey the gnomes again, on the very least!