Fortnite removes item rarities, upsetting fans

Fortnite fans are upset over the game's removal of cosmetic item rarities, which graded the game's vast vault of character skins, pickaxes, back blings and so forth with various different 'quality' levels.

Typically, these tiers have also corresponded to how much cosmetics cost in the game's item shop - with Uncommon (green) skins typically 800 V-Bucks, Rare (blue) typically 1200 V-Bucks, Epic (purple) typically 1500 V-Bucks and Legendary (gold) typically 2000 V-Bucks.

In a blog post yesterday, Fortnite acknowledged the disappearance of item rarities thus: "The Shop has evolved significantly to support multiple types of cosmetics and items across games, so we're retiring the old Battle Royale-inspired system of colors and tags for cosmetic quality."

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One caveat to this is that specifically-branded series of cosmetics (such as "Icons" for real-world people, "Gaming Legends" for crossovers with other video games) will remain.

Epic's statement references how Fortnite's item shop now sells lots of different things which may have been rated the same (ie. "Epic" rarity) but priced differently - especially with the introduction of music tracks and virtual instruments for Fortnite Festival, cars and vehicle effects for Rocket Racing, plus digital Lego parts and sets for Lego Fortnite.

It's also notable how the overall quality of Fortnite cosmetics has naturally improved over the game's eight-year life: older, more intricate skins rated "Legendary" are often similar in detail to newer (more affordable) skins now rated "Rare".

That said, this is a big change, as fans hold value in the rarity of the cosmetic items they have collected or paid for. And, at the very least, without the ability to sort your cosmetics by rarity they have become much harder to sift through.

It's perhaps unfortunate that the change, made yesterday, coincided with three top-priced character skins landing in the item shop for 2000 V-Bucks apiece. Zuko, Karata, Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender collectively cost 6000 V-Bucks (with a further Avatar event pass including Aang due to go on sale later this week).

While licensed skins often cost more (and Epic presumably splits some portion of their proceeds with the license holders), fans have pointed to these latest skins all costing the game's top price point being introduced at the same time as the removal of rarity tiers as a signal of overall price rises - a concern Epic has now responded to via a post on social media platform X.

"Hey - the change to remove color labeling from Shop items doesn't change our approach or the way we price things," Epic wrote. "We just wanna simplify the appearance of Fortnite (Locker, Shop, etc) and remove outdated Battle Royale-inspired systems."

In the meantime, fans have been busy discussing the changes - highlighting how rarities had recently been inconsistent:

Can we stop pretending like cosmetic rarity wasn't just an arbitrary gauge of 'value' and realize it doesn't matter they are now removed? Epic isn't trying to trick anybody with costs
byu/Jtneagle inFortNiteBR

And then having a joke about the whole thing:

Suggestion: Remove all color from the game in Battle Royale.
byu/Rango2404 inFortNiteBR

Remove rarity from Games logo
byu/Beandealer420 inFortNiteBR

Fortnite's Avatar: The Last Airbender collaboration continues later this week with the arrival of Aang. If you need to find Fortnite's Avatar iceberg location, we have you covered.