Fortnite’s Battle Pass Exclusivity Problem (And How I’d Fix It) 

"No, that is Not Solid Snake!"

The fix I’ve always believed is an “early access” kinda system. Like, have a tab in the battle pass screen that lets you access previous battle passes, but there’s like a 2 year delay or something, and you still have to spend 1000 V-bucks to access them. And if the can’t get the third-party licenses back, then there just isn’t a skin for that battle pass slot.

Let's not forget that fortnite is more playable then ever for people that don't like battle royals or build mode, so people who missed out because they didn't like build mode or battle royal are more then likely mad at the exclusivity.

I believe the actual reason why Epic games made Peter griffin buffed instead of his original design is because he would of been much shorter than the average skin hitbox, someone even did a concept of stretching his legs and arms to fit the scale and it looked awful.

Replacement skins make the situation even worse because you get constantly reminded of missing out on the skins original version

99% of live service games don't last as long as Fortnite has and that has just compounded the exclusivity problem. I think they will eventually bring back old battle pass stuff some day though we are probably still a few years away from that

Fortnite is nearly becoming a decade old, we really can not be having cosmetics in the game for 2 months 10 whole years ago just never returning

that is actually wild that you predicted the groot skin as it just released in the item shop the day im typing this

11:32 Fun fact: John Wick was going to be in the Season 9 Battle Pass, or atleast there was going to be a way to purchase the Battle Pass with him as a Bonus. It was leaked by HYPEX in a string at the start of that season.

Honestly the best thing they could do to fix the battlepass without pissing somebody off is to just let you complete previous battlepasses that YOU paid for. That way OG skins can stay rare while also letting people finish the pass at their own pace. It'll still keep the fomo aspect for epic since once the season is up you can't purchase that pass anymore, but players with less free time or wonky schedules can still complete it and get the rewards they paid for. If you really want people to be able to obtain the previous seasons' skins then the best way to do that without pissing one side off is to steal from valve yet again and add an in game trading feature. The supply of old skins stays the same, new players can access them, and epic could charge like 100 vbucks per transaction or something, everybody wins, except Epic's legal and IT departments who have to implement the system and all of the headaches that would come with it.

For Eren it shoulda been his older self version in season 4 and as well his titan forum

i must say that if they just sold the battle pass skins in the shop i think that this would be worth for the epic. When you buy the battle pass you use 1000 vbucks for 7 skins + secret, so if they put those skins from the bp but with the regular price like 2000 for legendsry 1500 for epic and on and on, this would also make profit i think and it would make buying the battle pass even more worth cuz you get more skins for half the price of a single one

What’s crazy is that the Marvel and DC battle pass skins are not that hard to replace. They are comic characters! Just like Daredevil, They can easily give Spider-Man, Superman (and others) comic like Cel-shading and put them in the shop. That’s just my idea tho.

Let’s be honest the only reason why they’re keeping it exclusive is because of the people that have a fueled ego about their skin being rare

This comments section makes me feel sane. I swear every time the discussion of bringing back skins that are assumed to be gone forever comes up, im torn to shreds for being supportive of it (despite spending hundreds to complete battle passes that i wanted to)

Sure battle passes are flawed but they’re also much more consumer friendly than loot boxes or pay to win, the 2 previous norms. Really shows if we keep pushing back things will only get better.

I feel like many other people believe that making Battle Pass skins be Battle Pass skins and nothing else, creates a sense of rarity. It makes players feel like they have a "relic" of sorts. Like a trophy, showing they've been there since the battle pass's release.

15:57 bro predicted the future

A comic version on carnage would actually be cool

This is what I think: Keep the battle pass as it is but let the colab skins also be released in the item shop when the season starts or later in the season

Some skins within those Battle Passes were so amusingly designed and fun that it feel sad to seem them lost forever behind an exclusive wall...half the people who own said skins dont really use them or enjoy them, they just have them as trophies and thats it...just something on the shelve, never to be taken out and that to me its sad because there were so many i would've loved to have such as Lt John Llama, Deadpool and Meowscles. While the other varients are in a sense a...compromise...for those who couldn't get the originals, its just...i would've prefered the original concept than a replacement...just because you give me the same coat in a different color, doesn't mean i'll like the color.

I think the best way they could do it is to make the battle pass purchasable forever and the quest refresh each battlepass

It should still be possible to unlock rewards from passes you had already purchased and missions when a season ends by just paying an amount of vbucks and only progressing in them after reaching level 200 in the current season, being able to select only one at a time and only being able to go to the next one after completing what you started to unlock the remaining rewards.

I’m kinda mixed on the whole thing. I think epic should put battlepass skins in the item shops eventually, but rarely

A little Metal Gear knowledge for you. In MGS 5 that is Venom Snake. Unlike the the other Big Boss Clones (Solid, Liquid, Solidus), he is only a mental copy of Naked Snake aka Big Boss. He went through brainwashing and cosmetic surgery to experience all of Big Boss’s missions in order to take on the role of Big Boss. The first time Solid Snake ever killed Big Boss was actually Venom Snake. So the clones/copies of Big Boss/Naked Snake are Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, and Solidus Snake. Solid Snake being the dominant clone (even though he had the inferior genes). Liquid having the the Dominant genes. Solidus being the perfect copy of Big Boss (no change to his dominant or recessive genes). It’s kinda confusing but I say all that just to say I think Raiden was supposed to be the replacement but other than him I’d like to see Naked Snake from MGS 3 Snake Eater

You make a lot of good points. One major issue I’ve been noticing with the Item Shop is that there isn’t a good rotation of skins. Like, most of the skins were recently in the shop within the past 30 Days. I would love to see a more aggressive rotation in the shop. As in, no skin should ever be out of the shop for more than a year. I’m a bit more lenient with collaboration skins as maybe there are some weird contract stipulations that prevent Epic from re-adding them. Great vid!

the way id fix it is to bring back only lore important characters, such as peely, and collabs, which can be anything from a bonus challenge collab to a random tier to even the tier 100s. then, id give all the OG owners an extra style, like purple skull trooper. dont make the collab extra styles related to that characters lore, do smt fun like a reverse color themed spider man

Eren should have the season 4 style, definitely

Are Epic contractually obligated to keep Battle Pass skins exclusive? Is there a legally binding contract that demands Epic keep these skins exclusive, lest they face legal repercussions? If the answer is no, then there is a chance Epic could bring back old Battle Passes or Battle Pass skins, no matter how slim said chance is. Their bottom line would need to suffer first, though.

Maybe instead it would be cool if you could finish previous battle passes you didn’t complete but still bought

I love how you added the Zero Crisis Background Music!

No that is not solid snake

I hope epic sees this

The Iron Man replacement skin I would choose is Tony Stark, based on his appearance in any MCU movie before Age of Ultron,/Mark 42. Imagine the suit up emote.

For a Solid Snake alternative that's still Solid Snake The outfit he had on when going by the codename Iroquois Pliskin in mgs2 would be the perfect choice considering that they went with the mgs2 design for Raiden

“The Prowler, which is a skin I bet you forgot was in the game” Me:*has prowler as my main skin*

Solution: Get in battlepass = early access to all new stuff for that season for 950 v bucks + some hard work All skins and cosmetics come to the item shop after that season ends for normal shop prices. That way, people who buy the battlepass can get them earlier, for cheaper, while people who only want a couple things can wait and just buy that. For those who wait, it would be more expensive to get all of what was in the battlepass that way though, so it would depend on how much you want, and how much time someone has that they can work on the battlepass. That's how I'd fix the battlepass system.

i feel like if they were to release battlepass skins in the item shop they should give the original owners of the skin a bonus style similar to skull trooper

Iron man was the only skin I could’ve ever wanted, I did not complete that season because life happened, in the end I got iron man zero and I agree it does not serve as a good replacement despite the arguably fairly cool design

Almost like you predicted the new Groot skin

This is why Brawl Stars did it best with the catalog feature with it's skins

there’s so many skins i wish i could get, having an option to go back and buy certain ones even at an induced price would be nice

That was a really interesting video. Subscribed. Will probaly use your code from now on as well. I wonder if you could make a similar one based on replacements for original Fortnite Battlepass characters like Dire :)

As someone who regularly plays fortnite and has a lot of the cosmetics I think it is so dumb that people can’t get skins I own such as classic Spider-Man, Lara Croft, Superman, Vader, and so on. I’m not someone who wants things to stay exclusive. One thing halo infinite does VERY well is that battlepasses and current event passes are not time gated.

For Eren, it should be his season 4 appearance. I feel like thats kind of a no brainer bc im shocked it wasnt a style for him in the battle pass 😂

I think if they wanted to bring old battle pass items into the shop, they could do something similar to purple skull trooper which allows people who "had it og" to show it off!

I think that brawl stars made an awedome BP system. The rewards in BP can be bought with gems and after 1 year of the BP releasing you can buy them in the shop. That way they can sell BP for 950 vbucks, get everyone to grind it out and after a period of time sell the skins individually for the price of the rarity. That way players can get skins cheaper and epic gets a lot of people playing and players can buy skins that way epic gets a chunk of money

The only tier 100 skin I really had a problem with missing was spider-gwen because im a big spiderman fan and literally have every other spiderman skin except her so its a real bummer that they drop a heat skin for one of the worst seasons

I think any of spidey’s movie designs would work well

As a Fortnite enjoyer and long time player, I completely agree, not because I missed most if not all of Chapter 2 after CH2 SE2’s epochal of delays, but as a returning player who got the got all the battle passes since CH3 SE4. I completely agree and hope epic does this, like that clip of the player getting stuck in between the tree’s “if Epic still has a heart” they’d listen, but who knows it’s a million dollar company Great video man! Keep it up 👍 ❤️

Actually, they do sometimes release these "mini" battle passes, like the jjk or dbz ones, that get added to the shop later

Fortnite should add a feature where every season there are two battle passes, the one for the season and another for a previous. The catch out is that you can only own one until you reach level 100 or 200 so it gives epic more money and playtime since people will be rushing to finish one battle pass to gain the other

So I love the idea of the previous battle pass system, but I also see the direct opposite being practiced in Deep Rock Galactic, they have a free battle pass with cosmetics and skins/ weapon skins colors gear items etc. The way they handle the system is that once a season ends, the entire battle pass goes into the games loot pool, you can get matrix cores through weekly challenges, when playing a normal game you can often find extra events which are bonus games/ challenges within the level, when successfully completing these challenges you get to pick from three items, an armor piece, a weapon power up, or weapon cosmetic, after you choose one you can use in game earned currency and materials to craft the item. I could see them adding these challenges to Fortnite as Battle Royale challenges within the matches where when doing the challenge it makes a siren go off attracting players to the area. But you have to complete the challenge while fending off the people trying to third party it. At the end you could earn the old defunct Battle Bucks through playing the game in general, plus beating certain challenges/ briefings, bounty board etc you earn battle bucks to craft the skins, emotes, pickaxes, gliders etc etc. They could even host events for certain pass skins etc to drive players to fight for the skin or vbucks.

A nice way to have Epic benefit people and keep making good money, continue their old battle passes or those they don't have, by upgrading the Fortnite Crew to unlock the passes, but they can only be unlockable when the subscription is active. So you just complete the pass before the subscription ends or gonna have to continue paying $12 plus tax for them :)

One cool thing is that all of the limited time battlepass skins that are themed like the jjk and Star Wars ones epic makes clear that those skins can and will return in the shop later, this was done with Yuji Itadori and Darth Maul.

If you bought the bsttle pass from an earlier season, but didnt complete it, if you have completed the current battlepass you should be able to choose which battle pass you would like to finish if you bought multiple and didnt finish them

yes I did miss out your right, I didnt know wolverine and spiderman had come out in a battlepass

I started chapter 3 season 1 and missed out on alot. I was locked out my xbox for 3 seasons and missed those battle passes and didnt even have time to 100% the spiderman battlepass. I honestly wish epic would do something like call of duty mobile where if you buy the battle pass you can still work.on it even after that season has ended. It would make people happy and they wouldnt lose money because they're just adding in already existing battlepasses that were already out.

I would love to see any of the spider-man characters get skins for they’re designs from the recent insomniac series

On my one game, they brought back items that you can purchase in their store that were from a past battle pass

Personally I think Peter Griffin should have had the roadhouse Peter as a selectable style, because Peter was buff during the roadhouse episode

Yo shout outs to Groot! He got a replacement skin recently! Very happy 😊 Also for Superman, maybe they could add a cell shaded version from the "My Adventures With Superman" tv show that came out fairly recently. I heard it did really well and is getting a second season, so it'd probably be a decent option.

great video man, I agree with this idea. but the same for emotes etc.

For Aquaman you could use his green and silver design from his 2017/2021 Justice League appearances with his mother's silver trident as a pickaxe

Some other Doctor Strange replacements could also be any of the Strange variants from MoM since the initial Strange was based off his redesign from the movie, so Sinister Strange, 838 Strange or the Strange from the opening fight. Strange Supreme from What if would work too. In terms of other characters, Kaecilius, The Ancient One, Wong and Mordo would also work too

As someone who is in the future they've added a young adult groot, a drax, and a mantis

I personally think my idea works well and still keeps fomo, battlepass reruns, each season as you level up you get rewards, as you know, but what if you could pay extra to gain extra rewards from older season, each season having a side season

How do you feel about the new mini pass system? 1 collab mini pass each season, then all the premium skins from each mini pass comes in a bundle like a month or 2 later.

I mean yeah, that why battle pass get reskins for those who don’t have the original like Drift, he was multiple variations like Summer, Graveyard, frozen, etc. and they started doing this with the festival pass, the Weekend was in the pass and apparently he is coming with the item shop version

I missed out on getting my favourite Fortnite skin of all time Doom Slayer and the fact he is never coming back is upsetting

Replacement skins is ultimately just a bandaid to the issue of FOMO, sure it solves the problem for short term but not indefinitely. I wouldn't put it past Epic to take a gamble and conjure a way to obtain old BP's in the future since Epic is known for taking big Gambles like Zero builds or shutting down the entire game just to stay relevant. I personally think it's inevitable since more games like Helldivers 2 will pop out with high popularity.

A trading system that lets players trade skins and cosmetics could be a solution that helps players get a chance to grab some skins they missed while also maintains the exclusivity on Epic's part. It's sort of like how Pokémon traders would trade different Pokémon. Say you're a DC fan but not a Star Wars fan... You could trade a Darth Vader for a Superman if you missed that. This way, the number of unlocked battle pass skins remains the same, and players can keep sharing skins among them to complete their dream collection.

I think Spidey should get the Rami suit.

I dont mind not being able to buy old battepasses, i just dont want them to expire

Apparently, Epic didn't have the funds at the time to give Peter Griffin his actual body. Which is why he looks buff in-game.

24:45 I have another idea: Shadow Series Nemesis Prime or RID2001 Scourge. Not really an alternate to Optimus but would still be really cool to see if The Cube Queen and her army of Kevins ever returns. Chapter 5 seems to be a remixed version of Chapter 2 and Midas is even returning so it's possible. Given how Scourge was made in RID2001 it just makes sense a corrupted snapshot version created by a Kevin would exist in Fortnite.

Something rather annoying about replacement skins is when they end up being exclusives, like Lexa, princess Lexa was a crew exclusive and Lynx, Trailblazer Lynx was a level up pack

This video is Hella entertaining. I wish I had a couple of the old skins.

I love the examples you gave to some of them but here's some that i'd also give some: -Doom Slayer (Doomicorn) -Spider-Man (Insomniac, Peter B (Spiderverse (it'd be cool if they gave him his robe)) -Rick Sanchez (Rick Prime) -Iron Man (War Machine (I know it's a different character but eh) -Peter Griffin (Micheal Bay Peter Griffin)

For doom slayer it would also be cool to see his makyr armour, or his doom 2016 armour. Both are distinct and different enough from his battle bass skin but it still feels like you're playing as the doom slayer.

Cuddlepool is a cash shop item, one I even recently purchased (there was a bunch of Deadpool-themed cosmetics too) I think there's absolutely a possibility Deadpool could get a new cash shop skin.

"Replacement skins" as he calls them are snapshots of lore-bound characters from whenever they enter or exit realities, so having them for crossovers wouldn't make sense as the crossover characters are consistent or already have edit styles.

The groot skin u mentioned was just leaked in the files

I just wish that if you bought the battle pass you had all the time in the world to finish it I feel like that is so fair, they’ll still be getting everyone’s money due to fomo if they can’t buy the battle pass when the season is over, but for the ppl that did buy it and didn’t have time they can make up for it and play the game more increasing the longevity just to get those battle pass skins they missed out on

They could just do what cod has done before, during cold war they sold previous battlepass skins in bundles so you could buy them

Might be a stretch but the comic accurate symbiote suit would be awesome

Yeah I experienced the battlepass FOMO hard as this past season ended, I bought the battlepass but did not realize how much school work I would have in the following months meaning that I only had a week to unlock everything I wanted which was basically just snake and Peter. I pretty much put all my homework and life stuff on the back burner for it. Do I regret it? No not really, but I really wish I didn’t feel like I needed to do this.

a few seasons back i somehow, by pure chance, saw that spider gwen was the featured 3rd party character, and i instantly reinstalled. have not played fortnite since like, the og season 3-4, or whatever it was called. The fomo worked.

Why can they sell calamity in the item shop bro The gold one sucks

madmaxx66 making peak videos as usual

IIRC, there were some star wars comics that had an all white suit for a kinda "redeemed" vader, that could make for a cool replacement skin for him. Or just make him glowy and blue and call it force ghost vader lol.

Hi just so u know groot does have a replacement skin releasing soon which is in fact the exact one u said would work, he will come to the item shop soon 👍

Groot has a wing glider but unfortunately he just holds on to it rather than it be attached like real wings

Minecraft dungeons has a simular system to halo were you can play any battle pass you want and they are free, i really hope fortnite adopts this system

I want my god dang Dr Doom skin, Epic

24:45 another few good replacement ideas for Optimus would be IDW comics Optimus/Orion Pax, Transformers Prime Optimus, or even nemesis prime just to name a few.

I just had a debate about this and that they should bring back collab battlepasses/just plain old battlepasses and have them priced at a higher value for people who missed out on them because of reasons. The only argument I ever got was “should have played before”, when I have already been playing this game for as many years as it’s been out. I just think collabs shouldn’t be in battlepasses when the only reason they are there is to get more sales on it and being able to give an accurateish idea of how much guaranteed revenue from it being in the battlepass will be.

For the mandalorian I'd just have a mandalorian that you can customise yourself

I would really love if we could get storm in her punk outfit with the iconic Mohawk

I think after you finish the current battle pass you should be able to start on previous battle passes, in order so you have to really grind the game to get back to the seasons from a long time ago (you also have to buy the previous season but not again if you already had it)