We are continuing the tradition of scary, villainous tier 100 skins in Fortnite. Like Dire and Ragnarok and Omega before him, we have yet another “bad guy” type badass skin as the tier 100 unlock for Fortnite season 7.
His name is The Ice King, very straightforward, and he’s clearly an homage to Warcraft’s Lich King, as his mining tool is a sword in addition to well, very much looking like the Lich King. He’s arrived in town with the iceberg that has now planted itself on the map, and seems likely to melt over time to reveal his castle. Right now we can only see the top, but that’s clearly going to change in time, as there’s an entire castle hidden in that ice without question. But why is he here? What does he want? I guess we have to wait and find out.
Like the past two seasons, the Ice King is a progressive skin, but with a new twist. While the tier 1 skins, Lynx and Zenith, are both progressive with XP and a couple different challenges, the Ice King has four tiers, but they’re color palate changes rather than him slowly building up armor like we’ve seen previously. And the way you unlock them has nothing to do with XP, and everything to do with the complete and utter destruction of his enemies. You’ll see what I mean.
Here’s his base look you’ll get when you unlock him at tier 100:
Then he switches to red after you outlive 1,000 opponents
White highlights are after outliving 7,500 opponents.
Finally a gold version of the armor is available after outliving 25,000 opponents.
That is uhhh quite the challenge, as even if you won every single game, outliving 99 other people, that would still take you about 250 games to fully unlock the Ice King’s skins. Outliving say, 50, would take you double that so, 500. I’d guess that most players will be somewhere in the middle, so 300-350 games maybe? Long-term challenge, that is. I like the idea because it’s like he’s collecting the souls of the dead, which seems like something an evil Ice King would do. You also unlock his dual-cape back bling at 500 outlives, and then his staff mining tool at 2,500 outlives. He’s shown with a sword in the loading screen, so maybe that’s a different tool to unlock later, or some part of the lore.
It’s interesting that yet again, Epic did not honor fans’ request for a female tier 100 skin. Last season we had calamity, the first female tier 1 skin, and now we have another female tier 1 in Lynx (also there’s a guy, Zenith), but no Tier 100 yet. Perhaps season 8 will bring one, but for now I guess the Ice King is plenty cool on his own, no pun intended.
I’m off to head out into the icy wasteland to see the massive map changes that season 7 and its iceberg have brought with it. See you out there.
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