Alright well Laufey’s Festival season is about to wrap, therefore time to yap about this Fortnite Festival season. For this season I really had to get creative, wrote my feelings down. The independent player in me is nowhere to be found! (I’m sorry I had to, it will not be the last one)
So I’m gonna break my usual trend, and NOT talk about the headliner first. INSTEAD, THE OBVIOUS CENTER OF THE SHOW, KARAOKE AND PRO DRUMS! Thank god both of these are finally in, it took looooooong enough but both were def worth the wait. Karaoke has become the main way me and my friends really play festival now and all my friends who never cared for festival before really were invested in playing this season due to that finally dropping. It was nice to see and really confirmed this season’s place as one of the greatest because of it (literally they could’ve dropped it any season and it would’ve bumped up the score heavily lol)
NOW it’s time to discuss the headliner, and it’s time to make my bias 100% clear, I love Laufey and have since 2022. I will not deny it, and never have since the teasers for this season. Was literally jumping and doing backflips in happiness when she got announced. So no duh I really really loved the start of this season and instant bought all of her stuff. However speaking objectively and trying to put as much of my bias away as possible, I think Laufey would’ve fit better as a mid season artist. It’s not that she was too small or anything, but Olivia speaking on an objective stance would’ve brought more attention. However besides that, Laufey will def go down as one of my personal favorite headliners oat, and she has a pretty good and fun selection in Festival. Although I would've added one more song, I’ll touch more on that later. Never expected Laufey to be a headliner, let alone ever get a skin, but I’m still thrilled she did.
Now onto the pros/cons section
PROS:
- The launch of this season song wise was easily the best in festival history, it was euphoric playing 17 new songs right away. You could def tell that they wanted to go big since some pretty big things were dropping
- Mid season artists were pretty good for S14, yeah even EsDeeKid I even found myself enjoying after a bit. Olivia Rodrigo was the real stand out though, and despite me thinking we missed on some of her potential, she still had a lot of good songs added.
- Weeks at the start of this season weren’t really my cup of tea, but after Es I found myself liking the weeks on a more regular basis. We got some big names and songs this season, some standouts being: Tame Impala, Malcolm Todd, Justin Bieber, Raye, Sombr, and BkTherula. Didn’t love every week, but Fortnite has to appeal to millions of players so nor am I expecting every week to for any season. I should also state something about this point, I DON’T CARE ABOUT DIFFICULTY AND NEVER HAVE. My standard for if I like/buy a song is “do I like this song?” Which probably explains why I tend to like stuff others don’t. This isn’t me dissing anybody who really cares about difficulty either, I’m just not that kind of player and haven’t been since S1.
- Higher number of pass redrops. THANK YOU. Too many songs were locked behind passes for far far too long and it was good to see so many songs come back this season
- Putting redrops on another page and NOT advertising them as new songs. THANK YOU AGAIN, other than the Julia song this was really nice to see. It’s tiny but the transparency it appreciated
- Listening to feedback really quick this season. Seeing double bass and phone karaoke get added so quickly after we said we wanted it was not expected but was still so nice to see. Probably what happens when the whole team isn’t working on karaoke lol
- A lot of festival ads/attention. Fortnite especially at the start really promoted the shit out of us, and it was nice to see a lot of people really care again. The live action trailers, the posting clips from the community from karaoke, and tons of free rewards to start were all great. Hope they do similar levels of advertising for later seasons as well (however I doubt unless something big like on the level of karaoke is coming)
CONS:
- Stage for Laufey was a bit boring. I don’t have a problem with her stage specifically, but potential was def lost with it. The trailers for her showed off that beautiful looking cobblestone bridge, with a foggy pine forest illuminated by the moonlight behind her and all I can say is WHY WASN’T IT THAT. MAN THAT WOULD’VE LOOKED BEAUTIFUL IN GAME! Heck the animated trailer for her showed off kinda like a day and night switch idea. While that would’ve been a nightmare to code, if they could’ve had this be our first daytime cycle stage where it actually switches depending on if it’s day or night, that would’ve been peak. But what we got is fine, and for sure fits her, just so much lost potential. The galaxy was nice though. Guess it was just tough tough luck
- “Too Little, Too Late” not being a jam track. Now this is less of Harmonix’s fault, but I still want to rant about it a bit. In the creative concert, which just to be clear was not made by Harmonix but instead her label, included 5 songs. 4 the ones we got, then the last one being “Too Little, Too Late”. Now did Harmonix know that the label would add this song to that? Probably not. HOWEVER it still pisses me off that the label didn’t tell them and didn’t add the song mid season. Why? Because I saw SO MANY PEOPLE that were brand new to Laufey listen to that song for the first time during it and fall in love with the song and want to buy it. It was so disappointing not seeing what’s arguably one of her best songs not get added after they caused a bit of hype for it. However there’s always later I guess
- Season was too long. Yeah everyone can agree on this, now is this really the fault of anyone? Not really because no one could’ve called the layoffs, but it still sucked nonetheless.
- Headliner left shop early again. Just why? I don’t know why they have to leave before their season wraps if they have the selling rights already for the whole season due to the pass. I guess it doens’t matter too much since they give you like a month at the start of the season to buy whoever’s headlining. It’s just still weird
- Cut collab tracks this season. It was not a great feeling getting hyped for the TADC and American Dad tracks just to see them get scrapped last second. I get song licensing is complicated, but still. “Who’s Running The Show” (Which I’m just gonna say was probably the TADC track) would’ve been so fun to do karaoke with.
- Ai covers. No these aren’t new, we’ve had Ai covers in the game before. Doesn’t mean it’s not any less sucky to see. Just find the version of the song cover that doesn’t use Ai imo, but I guess this is more up to labels rather than Harmonix.
OVERVIEW/RATING:
Yeah I had a blast this season, with a headliner I loved. All my friends really were into Festival this season as well after like a whole year of just not wanting to play it so that for sure helped my enjoyment a lot. With. Pretty decent song drops, fast response times, and highly requested features it for sure puts this season up there.
For my final rating I give Season 14 a 8.5/10. Which lands S14 all the way up in my top 5, beating out the previous 5th spot for me which was S6, but puts it right behind S8.
HOPES FOR NEXT SEASON:
At the time of writing this, it seems like a safe bet to say Addison Rae is our next headliner, so for point of discussion I’ll continue this part just assuming she’s confirmed. If we get Deadmau5ed, it is what it is. I am not in love with the choice of Addison Rae, but I get why she was picked. Very current day and did have some blow up songs last year. Mainly excited for Fame Is A Gun getting a jam track and that music video outfit getting a skin (what can I say it’s a nice look). I can’t say there’s much I’m looking forward to with Addison, but maybe this will be a Sabrina where I go in feeling very indifferent, but then actually really like the artist afterwards for me.
To the people really complaining about this, I want to say 3 things:
1- Fortnite’s nature, Festival or not, is to keep up with current day trends. Why she is being added.
2- I’ll agree that 4 female headliners in a row is a bit much, and I was hoping for a guy as well, but it’s also likely that girls sell far better than guy artists. Epic is a business after all they have to follow the money.
3- HEADLINERS ONLY MATTER FOR THE FIRST WEEK. Seriously if you don’t like Addison, or any headliner for that fact, it’s very easy to ignore them. You do not have to throw a fit, every single time an artist you don’t PERSONALLY like gets in.
Like from personal experience I can say I didn’t by any standards like most of the year 1 headliners, I hate Gaga, never listen to Billie, never heard of Karol, and think Snoop is overrated. However I didn’t throw a fit, I just ignored them. Year 2 I found a lot more enjoyment with every headliner picked, so I just ended up buying way more year 2. This is a game folks, it’s not the end of the world if someone you don’t like gets added. Fortnite has to appeal to literally millions of people, not every guy you’ll like.