Starting April 9, Fortnite is getting a new core mode developed by Epic Games called Arenas, which will allow players to take part in round-robin boxfight tournaments. Arenas, which was made with Unreal Editor for Fortnite, is essentially Epic’s attempt to make its own version of a very popular genre of user-made Creative maps. Boxfights may be, in fact, Fortnite Creative’s most common type of map.
Technically, Arenas is not Fortnite’s first attempt at an official boxfight map. The Legends Landing island, which is likely better known among normal folks as a venue for watching pro Fortnite tournaments, has two small boxfight arenas in its lobby. But Arenas will be the first time that boxfights will be the actual main purpose of an Epic-made map.
Let’s dive into the details so we can see how exactly it works.
The basics: It’s builds only
Since Arenas is a boxfight mode, it can only be played with build mode–it wouldn’t be a boxfight if you couldn’t build a box to fight in. But it’s OK if you aren’t great at building, because Epic wants Arenas to also serve as a sort of tutorial mode for players who want to learn. Before you ask: There’s no point in wondering about a zero-build version of this, because the arena is just a big empty square with no natural cover. A zero-build variant doesn’t make any sense.
Beyond that, the premise in Arenas is that you and 15 other players will take part in 1v1 or 2v2 round-robin tournaments–meaning everybody plays everybody–until a player or team reaches the win limit. The size of the arena will vary from round to round, and each match has pre-set weapon loadouts so everyone is on equal footing.
Free rewards
You can earn a spray and a back bling (pictured above) by playing Arenas. Winning 125 rounds will get you the Cracked spray, and 300 wins will earn you the Builder’s Crest back bling.
It’ll have an announcer
Fortnite has, somehow, never had any mode with a gameplay announcer, despite that being a common feature in many competitive shooters, including several of Epic’s own games, like the Unreal Tournament series. The announcer for Arenas will be Elite Zadie, a Fortnite-original character. We don’t know who the voice actor is, though, since Zadie has never had any lines before, but you can listen to her barks here.
It’s all about ranked
Instead of invisible skill-based matchmaking, which Epic may still not be able to implement in UEFN islands like this one, your rank will determine your opponents. So you should theoretically be matched against people of similar skill instead of being overwhelmed by higher-skill players. Though, if you’re not a particularly spicy player, you may want to wait a few days before playing Arenas, to give the best players time to rank up–when the mode launches on April 9, everyone will start at the same rank.
Team merges
If you’re playing in a 2v2 tournament and your teammate disconnects or quits out before the full tournament plays out, Arenas will attempt to match you with another player who’s in the same boat so that you can keep going as a full team. With this being an entirely new mechanic for Fortnite, you should expect it to glitch out sometimes, but it’s a solid idea.