Skip to content
Fortnite Countdown
Pre-Season key art

Chapter 1 · Pre-Season

Everything About Fortnite Chapter 1 Pre-Season

This was Fortnite Battle Royale before it was really "Fortnite Battle Royale" as anyone knows it today. The mode launched free to play on September 26, 2017, tacked onto the paid co-op game Save the World, which had come out a couple months earlier. There was no Battle Pass yet, no seasonal structure, just the core last-player-standing loop taking shape. It's less a season and more the foundation everything else got built on.

Dates: September 12, 2017 – October 24, 2017Duration: 42 Days

What’s New

New Content

  • The Battle Royale mode itself launched as a free download
  • The Zapotron weapon briefly existed before getting vaulted early on
  • No Battle Pass or season structure existed yet, just the base game loop

Season Theme

There isn't really a theme here beyond "new game finding its footing." No narrative, no live events, just the earliest version of the island and the beginnings of what would become one of the biggest games ever made.