Season 8 of Fortnite has kicked in, a season which promises new exciting features. And with a new Fortnite season comes a new batch of weekly challenges to enjoy.
The free challenges corresponding to season 8, week 1 are the following: Visit all Pirate Camps, Search Chests at Retail Row or Junk Junction and Deal Damage with a Shotgun and an Explosive Weapon in a single match.
The first challenge just involves locating the 7 Pirate Camps on the map. At first, I had a bit of trouble doing so, until I realized that these look more like forts (with a pirate flag waving on top) rather than camps proper. In order to make things easier for you, the image below shows how the Pirate Camps look in Fortnite. You might also find this easier knowing that most of these are located at the foot of hills and other elevations in the game’s map.
In order to ace the second challenge, you’ve got to search 7 chests at either of these two named locations: Retail Row or Junk Junction. These locations will be plenty familiar for those who’ve been playing Fornite for yonks now, but those who are new to the game need to know that you can find Retail Row south of the volcano located in the top right section of the map, while Junk Junction is located in the top left corner of the map.
Searching the chests is simply a matter of walking up to them and hitting the corresponding button, although bear in mind there will likely be plenty of players roaming these locations now in order to complete the challenge, making it hard to search these chests without being shot down… Playing a mode like 50 v 50 or Team Rumble instead of diving solo into Battle Royale could make it easier to complete this challenge.
The final challenge is the hardest of the week, as it involves dealing damage to opponents with different kinds of weapons in one match. At first sight, this is not a hard as eliminating opponents (which admittedly can be a quite difficult thing to do these days).
The tricky thing here though, is the fact that you have to deal damage with two kinds of weapons to other players in the same match. In the first stage this involves dealing damage with a shotgun AND an explosive weapon in the same match. But if you get close enough to a player to deal damage with a shotgun, then it’s almost a certainty that you will either eliminate this player or end up being eliminated, meaning this is actually harder than an elimination challenge in my view.
So, in order to make this third challenge more doable you might wish to play a 50 v 50 team mode, or any another mode involving squads, such as Team Rumble. This is because in these modes you respawn quickly with all your gear intact upon elimination, making it easier and faster to complete the challenge.
This third challenge of the week also comprises three different stages.
In stage 1, you have to deal damage with a shotgun and an explosive weapon in the same match. Meanwhile, stage 2 requires that you do damage to opponents with a pistol and an assault rifle in the same game. In stage 3, more of the same applies: but the weapons this time are the sniper rifle and the SMG. These weapons are easy enough to find, although admittedly sniper rifles and SMGs appear to be less commonplace than the others though. Explosive weapons in Fortnite include the clinger weapon seen above, as well as dynamite, the rocket and grenade launchers, stink bombs and others.
The first step here, of course, is to equip yourself with the necessary weapons, looking for these in chests at named locations such as Retail Row after you’ve landed, and then locate any opponents to attack. When you’ve managed to deal damage to another player and eliminated him (or be eliminated – hopefully after scoring a hit with one of the weapons needed to complete the current stage of the challenge) switch to the other weapon and find a victim to use your Fortnite weapon with. Easier said than done, but still, practice makes perfect or so they say…
This new batch of challenges should keep you busy until next week’s become available, then. This season also seems to have launched with a few performance issues, with things not running quite as smoothly as expected, so it would no doubt be a great thing if Epic solved these issues while hopefully delivering more surprises to Fortnite players in the weeks to come too.