I've always been pro-Fortnite at HHN. It's just one of those strange weird IP opportunities that I love to see the event take on. While we can sometimes end up with unfortunately boring duds like CryptTV, we can also get some really interesting and off-kilter stuff from IP you wouldn't necessarily think of working as a haunt, like Weeknd or WWE.
Having seen it now in-person, I definitely enjoy this zone. It isn't event-defining or some runaway success story, but it does exactly what it sets out to do and a little more. Cat Lady was not scary, and neither is this. I think that's okay. The vibes and theming brought to this constrained area is enough to justify itself IMO.
I really like the premise of walking through the shrinking Storm Wall from the game, though I do wish the purple tones were stronger, and that the whole thing was more "stormy" visually. (That might come from the natural storm clouds the installed Corn here will bring haha.)
Using the Cube Fiends as your source of scares is a good choice, and they look cool here. Even if you don't know the game, the purple "Shrinking Storm Wall" screens towards the front of the zone, matching the same shade as the purple Fiend monsters throughout the rest make the thematic threats here consistent enough to catch on to.
The many differently outfitted original Fortnitemares characters are also around for pictures and fun crowd moments. I saw a number of "emote" dance sessions, prompted by both guests and performers. It's really fun and cute actually. Good energy here.
I think the location fits great for a smaller party-type zone, especially with the IP-integrated lagoon show next door. Fortnite is obviously uniquely situated to work well connected to other IP like that. An original zone or IP zone like
Trick R Treat would not work anywhere as well with
Stranger Things looming over it every hour. Cat Lady only got away with it because both it and Ghoulish were original offerings with traditional Halloween theming. You can't rely on that kind of coordination every year.
It's definitely a notch or two down in scope from Cat Lady, but it also isn't
too much lower than it. Fortnitemares still has the large Battle Bus at the end of the path, as well as a number of smaller stages around the zone. In aiming and falling short to match last years' layout, it still ends up more elaborate than most any Central Park zone before Cat Lady, going back to ... maybe Twisted Traditions?
Fortnite's sets are definitely less detailed or aged than Cat Lady was. That comes free as you replicate the cartoony aesthetic of the game. But that's not to say there aren't details here. They are just prioritized a little differently this time.
As
@Legacy pointed out, the lightning effects on the trees are really cool and totally new, at least to me.
- I believe different casts have entirely different Fortnite skin characters, which is potentially neat and adds a subtle bit of variety to a smaller zone like this.
- Mainly though, I wanna shout out to how they interpret the gameplay loop of Fortnite within regular and consistent show moments, as performers take to the constructed forts around the path and shoot at each other with big LED blasts on their prop guns and big blasts of fog as the shot "impacts" the opposing fort. The sound design sells it. It's a pretty cool effect, and like nothing I've seen them do before. I think it's pretty fun!
Central Park zones in the late 2010s and early 2020s just don't have the space to breathe like other venues, but A&D kept designing and concieving of zones meant to work as if they had the space of Hollywood next door. They needed a shake-up pretty bad, and I think they immediately hit a stratospheric home run with Cat Lady's narrative-centric design and high level of scope and rewalkability.
This year, they could've either gone back to the tired old formula, tried to make lightning strike twice with another narrative-zone, or gone in a completely new direction; and I'm happy with that third option here. It's strange, and it's new for the event in a lot of different ways, but it's also real fun. I hope people can see what it does right, through their own disinterest in the source material or worries of an ever-looming wave of imagined children suddenly buying Frequent Fear Passes.