At the conclusion of the Star Wars live event in Fortnite today, lightsabers were added as weapon drops and storm troopers appeared in Risky Reels.
Despite some initial server problems, the Fortnite X Star Wars live event seemed to go off without a hitch. The event began with the Millennium Falcon swooping in overhead to battle some imperial Tie Fighters. Players could hold right click to focus on the battle for a cinematic point of view.
Eventually the Millennium Falcon landed and Geoff Keighley appeared as a hologram alongside Ben Schwartz as a wacky Storm Trooper. The pair riffed for a bit before introducing J.J. Abrams, who emerged from the Millennium Falcon as a fully modeled character.
J.J. greeted the millions of players watching around the world and even gave a shout out to streamer DrLupo. If you were in game you could see dozens of other players in each lobby jumping around like an actual crowd at a real event.
Geoff asked the audience to vote on what they thought the clip was about by standing on a corresponding platform. "Jedi Mind Trick" was the winning option, and the clip did in fact feature a Jedi Mind Trick.
The clip was fairly short and spoiler free, never-the-less it was a pretty remarkable event in gaming and the first time a movie clip has premiered in game. Fortnite may not have invented the in-game live event but they've certainly capitalized on the concept better than any game has before.
After the clip, Geoff once again asked players to vote on their favorite colored lightsaber. While players were moving onto the corresponding platform, the Tie Fighters returned causing Geoff and Ben to flee back onto the ship. Everything went into slow motion momentarily, and then a treasure chest appeared on the stage. Players swarmed the chest and each claimed their favorite color lightsaber.
Lightsabers aren't merely skins for the pick axe, they actually lootable weapons that come in 4 colors. There are also crashed Tie Fighters and Storm Troopers popping up at Risky Reels for players to practice their lightsaber skills on.
The lightsabers do 45 damage per hit and combo into a massive 150 hit AOE overhead strike. They can also block to reflect shots back at opponents.
The event was one of the coolest things to ever happen in Fortnite and players are going to have a lot of fun using the lightsabers during the limited time event. Everyone that participated also got a new glider, and skins for Rey, Finn, and Stormtroopers are available in the shop.