Epic Games will be dramatically altering how progression works in Fortnite’s various modes in the near future. Starting with all new passes added after the current season ends, you will progress through any pass you have using XP–Festival points and Lego studs will be retired, and you’ll be able to progress all of your current passes simultaneously by earning XP in any mode. This change will start with the new Festival pass–which is being re-dubbed as the “Music pass”– that launches on Nov. 2, and the Lego Pass will be updated with this change on Dec. 1, when Fortnite Chapter 6 begins.
On top of the changes to progression, the passes themselves will be changing too. The current Festival and Lego passes, as well as the mini-pass events like this summer’s Pirates of the Caribbean one, have all used the same 11-tier template that’s split into free and paid tracks. New passes that start after Chapter 6 begins in December will finally abandon that template, switching to a new single track that will have both paid and free items. Likewise, the battle pass is being simplified, doing away with the battle star currency and swapping in a more straightforward progression system.
In essence, the battle passes, Lego passes, and Music passes will now all have a similar format, though the Lego and Music passes will likely still be much shorter than the battle passes.
On top of all that, starting in Chapter 6, Fortnite will no longer have an option for buying levels on its passes–instead, you’ll be able to buy any specific item directly, though you’ll still need to buy the pass itself first. In theory, this means you could be able to show up at the end of the season and purchase the tier 100 skin immediately without having to buy out the whole pass for $100+.
The passes will still go away at their stated end dates, and you won’t be able to purchase or progress them after their respective season ends.
This could be considered a quality of life boost, since it will mean that you don’t need to play Festival at all to complete the pass for that mode. But these changes will likely be accompanied by the removal or severe nerfing of passive XP from Festival and Lego Fortnite–because the quests for those modes will now award XP instead of a mode-specific currency, the passive XP becomes unnecessary. Since a lot of folks used these modes to level up while AFK, it’s possible that this change is being made at least in part to eliminate that practice.
That passive rate of XP gain in these modes has been quite good, but overall progression may be slower once these changes kick in. We’ll have to see how it actually works before we know if this is a positive change.