Fortnite Winterfest Kicks Off With Free Skins, Unvaulted Weapons, And More

It's the happiest time of the year in Fortnite. The annual Winterfest event, during which Epic Games celebrates the holiday season by giving away tons of cosmetics to players for free, has finally begun. It runs until 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET on January 3.

For those who took part in last year's Winterfest, not too much has changed. Starting today you can visit the Winterfest Lodge--accessible from a new button on the main menu--and open one present a day until you've opened all 14 of them. Across those 14 presents you'll find 17 free items, including two gliders, two wraps, three lobby tracks, three sprays, a back bling, pickaxe, contrail, emote and emoticon. Oh yeah, and two free skins. If you miss some days, that's okay. You can catch up all the way through the end of the event on the morning of January 3.

Fortnite's Battle Royale modes are being affected too, of course. Coming out of the vault for Winterfest are the snowball launcher, a heavy weapon, and presents, which come with all sorts of quality loot inside. And Sergeant Winter will be driving around the island in a big rig tossing presents to folks who don't shoot him. So don't shoot him, unless you don't want any presents.

Epic didn't tell us most of what most of the free Winterfest Lodge stuff will be, but they did show us the new free skins, which are re-dos of Adeline and Guff, named Arctic Adeline and Sled Ready Guff.

On top of those skins, there is another free Guff available right from the item shop on PC only. This one is called Guff Gringle, and he just might be the best of the three free outfits.

You probably thought we were done talking about the free stuff by now, but there's still one more bit: a curling iron emote, which you can earn by playing games in any mode with five different friends (not necessarily at the same time) during the three weeks of Winterfest. If you complete the objective, you'll receive the emote in January a few days after the event ends.

Fortnite Crew members also have an extra bonus this month with the Chill-la-la-Llama back bling, which Crew members should receive the next time they log into Fortnite. In the Item Shop, you can check out one of the first new Winterfest outfits, Snowdancer.

And, of course, to go along with all this we've got plenty of Winterfest-themed quests, and a list of Winterfest-themed Creative islands curated by Epic that you can explore.

Fortnite 23.10 patch notes

This week's update didn't just start the Winterfest party--it's also the last major patch of the calendar year. One big thing it adds is the Chapter 4 Season 1 battle pass super styles, which you can check out now in the bonus rewards section of the battle pass tab. Unfortunately, the Doom Slayer is not among the skins getting Super Styles. Those who are: Selene, Helsi, Dusty, Massai and The Ageless.

We've got some bug fixes in this patch as well.

• For PC players, we have fixed an issue causing the rebinding of Reality Augments to only be available during a match.
• Voice chat settings changed in the Sidebar will now save correctly.
• Fixed an issue causing Overshield damage numbers to appear white.
• The Shockwave Hammer will no longer deal damage to players through structures/builds.
• Mobile players can now swipe through the Battle Pass and are no longer restricted to only pressing the arrow keys.

If you missed it, Epic also instituted some balance changes in a hotfix on December 9. This is what they changed:

• Reduced the time it takes to capture a POI.
• Improved the Tactical Pistol’s accuracy and recoil.
• Improved the Maven Auto Shotgun’s fire rate and accuracy.
• Reduced the Thunder Shotgun’s equip time.
• Reduced the Ex-Caliber Rifle’s player damage and hipfire accuracy, and greatly reduced its environment damage.
• Increased the recharge time of the Shockwave Hammer’s bounce.-Light Ammo now drops in stacks of 20, up from 18.

Winterfest isn't the only party happening in Fortnite this week. This is also the week that Mr Beast arrives in Fortnite, and he's bringing with him a competition that will see one very skilled (or very, very lucky) player win a million dollars. Dare to dream, kids.