Fortnite‘s yearly seasonal events are something that draws in new and old players alike, promising exciting new changes to the game plus free cosmetics. This year’s Winterfest brought back the free presents for the 14 days leading up to Christmas and in-match changes like Sgt. Winter. While the event isn’t expected to end for a week, on Jan. 3, Epic reverted the in-match changes early.
As a part of Winterfest 2022, players were able to see Sgt. Winter around the map, find Holiday Present throwables, and use the Snowball Launcher to get rid of enemies. It seems that Epic Games has ended the in-match changes for Winterfest a week early, although the Cabin and the presents still remain redeemable, with the 14th day to collect presents being yesterday.
No one’s really sure why the event challenges and match changes were reverted, but it may have something to do with the weekly quests resetting. Last week’s quests were Winterfest-themed and it seems that this week the quests have returned to the standard format. If these quests were scheduled in advance, it would make sense that the change back to the regular island was planned.
On the other hand, Epic has been removing a lot of new features lately, like the Hurdle mechanic, because they’ve been causing issues in the game. It could be that the Winterfest challenges or in-game cosmetics were causing an issue that couldn’t be resolved until Epic gets back from its winter break, meaning those still around had to change back to the regular island in the meantime.
Whatever the reason, it seems that Epic isn’t disabling Sgt. Winter’s cabin yet, which means that players can still redeem their presents until Jan. 3. The challenges have ended, however, and that means players are no longer eligible for the experience rewards.
In the past, Epic has given some kind of consolation prize when it has had to end an event early. Time will tell if this was an intended change or an issue that needed to be resolved.
