This week, Epic Video games rolled out a brand new collection of quests (previously referred to as 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 very good few chapters in the past, again when Fortnite’s lore was in its very primitive phases and collaborations have been a mere risk, the weekly challenges we received felt really 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 means of. They actually leaned into what makes Fortnite properly… Fortnite. Its zany, eccentric, and tongue-in-cheek strategy to the Battle Royale style.
Alas, in some unspecified time in the future a number of 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 not often can we get a problem that actually 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 in 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, Harm 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 sort 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 aside 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 many others. — 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 got 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 Jap Constructing), one other tasked us with utilizing a twig 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 appears like Epic’s making an attempt one thing just a little bit new, and we will’t be mad at that.
Deep down, I do know the times of looking 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 somewhat eerie laughing once more. In any case, the easy challenges we’ve received now have come about for a cause. To maintain the lots who need to grind out the Battle Move as quick as potential comfortable, 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 sorts, and collect-a-thons, and overly difficult or cryptic quests that can enable everybody to be comfortable.
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 consequence of arrive subsequent week, there’s hope that we may even see a change to weekly quests. C’mon Epic, carry the gnomes again, on the very least!
