Fortnite‘s collaboration with the Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse has brought Godzilla and King Kong skins to Fortnite, but this event isn’t just about cosmetics–it’s also adding the chance that one player each round of battle royale will get to play as Godzilla. And by “play as Godzilla,” I mean you will be taller than the tallest building in Seaport City, and will have the ability to crush every building and build on the map by stepping on it or firing off Godzilla’s laser breath.
It’s similar to how the playable Doctor Doom worked during Chapter 5 Season 4, except you’ll be even taller than the giant Doom was. But the way this works can be a little bit confusing the first few times you encounter it–while there have been past Fortnite events that were in a similar vein to this Godzilla event, the way it actually functions is all new. So let’s break it down piece by piece.
How the playable Godzilla mechanic works in Fortnite
Right now, every game of battle royale and Zero Build has a 40% chance of spawning a rift that will allow the first player through to turn into a gigantic Godzilla that can do a big roar, a big stomp, and a big (and likely pungent) blast of laser breath. The rift will spawn about three minutes or so into the match and will add an icon to everyone’s map announcing the location. You can’t go into it immediately, however. All players are told that it’s coming a minute or so before it can actually be used. This is so that the Godzilla role won’t just automatically go to whoever is closest when it spawns–gotta give others a chance, too.
There’s no consistent way of knowing when Godzilla will spawn, but when he is coming, there’s a 25% chance that King Kong will pop up at the start of the match and drop some extra Monarch-branded supply drops–you’ll be able to see him quite clearly from the battle bus when this happens, so it’s fairly hard to miss it. Just remember: Every time Kong appears, he’ll be followed by Godzilla that very same match, but Kong will not show up in every match that has Godzilla. Most of the time, Godzilla will appear without Kong. A more consistent tell might be nice, but Epic probably doesn’t want people dropping out of matches right at the start over and over until they find one with Godzilla, which is exactly what some people would do if given the opportunity.
Once you or somebody else has turned into Godzilla, you’ll stay that way for up to ten minutes–you’ll have a health bar that immediately starts depleting automatically. And other players can shorten the timer by shooting Godzilla as he rampages all over the place. When the health bar hits zero, whether due to time or damage taken, you’ll turn back into a normal player, and whoever did the most damage to Godzilla will receive a medallion that gives them a recharging dash ability (a la the Cerberus medallion in Chapter 5) and a mythic quad rocket launcher.
To be clear, you cannot die while playing as Godzilla–you’ll always turn back into a normal player at the end of it, no matter what. From there, you’ll play the rest of the match out as usual. You don’t, by the way, get any rewards for having been Godzilla in a match, aside from the happy memories.
While this is certainly reminiscent of the Doom Island from Chapter 5 Season 4, this iteration of the concept is a big improvement on paper because it occurs near the beginning of the match instead of halfway through–Godzilla will be gone long before he’s able to completely unbalance the endgame the way the massive Doctor Doom did.
