Fortnite OG is here, bringing back planes, hamster balls, Tilted Towers and more over the next four weeks

Fortnite’s nostalgic latest season has kicked off, bringing back a slew of weapons, vehicles, items and cosmetics from the battle royale game’s first chapter. The truncated Fortnite Chapter 4 Season OG - which will last just four weeks, rather than the usual three months - has also restored the game’s original map as seen in Chapter 1, meaning the return of places like Tilted Towers, Loot Lake and Greasy Grove.

Fortnite Chapter 4: Season OG Gameplay Trailer

A flashback season for Fortnite was teased by several leaks a few weeks back, with developers Epic eventually confirming earlier this week that the multiplayer shooter’s next season would be a trip back to its early days.

Specifically, Season OG has kicked off today with an update based on Chapter 1 Season 5, meaning the unvaulting of the Assault Rifle, Pump Shotgun and Hunting Rifle as weapons, with the Damage Trap, Grappler and Boogie Bomb re-added as items.

On the vehicle front, shopping carts and the All Terrain Kart are back in, letting you whizz around locations including Greasy Grove, Risky Reels and the iconic Tilted Towers, which was a classic place to drop and normally get immediately eliminated (if you’re me, anyway) until being blown up in 2019.

To keep pace with the fairly whistlestop season, the Season 5 tribute will last just a week until November 9th, which will bring elements from Season 6 back into the mix. That includes Loot Lake as a location, along with weapons including the Double Barrel Shotgun, Clinger and Six Shooter and items such as the Chiller Trap, Port-a-Fortress and Mounted Turrets. The Quadcrasher quad bike will join the Driftboard - which was technically added in Season 7, but will jump up the queue here - as vehicles.

Then on November 16th it’s time for Seasons 7 and 8, which will combine into a single update reintroducing the Chapter 1 map’s snowy region and chilly airport Frosty Flights. With that airport comes the return of a plane vehicle in X-4 Stormwing, with the other vehicle (or method of transport, I suppose) being the more nautical Pirate Cannon. That swashbuckling theme will continue into the return of the Flint-Knock Pistol, plus the less antiquated Minigun and Quad Launcher rocket launcher. On the item front, the Poison Dart Trap, Itemized Glider Redeploy and Buried Treasure will be unvaulted.

Finally, Season OG will see out its tour through Fortnite history with an update on November 23rd themed around Seasons 9 and X. There’ll be a pull from the earlier Season 8 too, in the form of the grappling hamster ball-like Baller vehicle, which can swing around and flatten opponents. Sort of a vehicle but technically an item will be the returning Jetpack, joined by the Storm Flip item. Added to the armoury will be the Heavy Sniper Rifle - a favourite of mine for dealing such ridiculous damage - Proximity Grenade Launcher, Air Strike and Junk Rift.

Some of the additions will last only for the week of their update, while others will run through the entire season. While most things will appear in all of Fortnite’s modes, the Chiller Trap, Mounted Turret and Poison Dart Trap won’t be in Zero Build mode (the best way to play), for obvious reasons.

Alongside the new season is a new Battle Pass, reduced down to just 50 levels from the usual 100 to match the shorter length of the season. Progression will apparently be much faster too, helping you to speed through and nab a load of costumes and gear that are mashups of popular unlockables from the past. The Item Shop will have a mixture of new and returning items throughout the Season OG, too.

The Season OG run follows on the heels of Epic laying off more than 800 people in September (and selling music haven Bandcamp, which then suffered their own cuts), citing Fortnite’s underperformance and relatively slow growth as a contributing factor.