Fortnite's Halloween event has massive monsters and Ariana Grande in a spacesuit

As is now obligatory for any kind of service game, Fortnite has announced its 2021 Halloween event: The Wrath of the Cube Queen. Fortnite being Fortnite, however, the largest live service game in the world and the vanguard of Tim Sweeney's beloved metaverse, it's doing it at quite the scale.

Fortnite's had a thing with cubes that now goes back years, and the Fortnitemares event is all about basically a cube war. Players have previously fought against the cube monsters, but now the cube queen's turned up with some giant ones called Caretakers. "Tall, foreboding, shadowy apparitions," it says here, making them sound quite romantic really. They should be carrying a box of Milk Tray. But alas "their spectral tendrils pull you directly into The Sideways for a showdown on their home turf. Survive a Caretaker’s assault and you’ll walk away all the richer."

As part of the event the Horde Rush mode returns, which players can enter as a team, and comes with its own quests and scheduled tournaments. So: kill the little things, kill the new big things, get lots of loot.

There's a whole bunch of cosmetic stuff included in the Halloween event, listed in the blog, and the whole shebang comes with a 'punchcard' of quests to earn bits and bobs. Most eyebrow-raising is that "Ariana Grande has returned to the Island, but now in new gear ready to take down monsters." 'Spacefarer Ariana Grande' comes with her own monster hunter questline that of course has its own Grande rewards.

There's also some Ghostbusters gear inspired by the new film, and alongside all the new loot the daily and weekly quests have been rejigged to basically be more generous: "now offering additional objectives and more XP for each completion."

Rather sweetly, this update also comes with a papercraft blog with various templates for Fortnite-related masks and figures. In case you're, god forbid, tempted to go outside on Halloween. It is rather tempting to build one's own Peely. This rather bland banana mascot is somehow now the game's true star: perhaps because of the legal arguments over whether it's naked.

The Wrath of the Cube Queen event is live now and will run until 9am ET on November. There's also more to come, including a series of animated shorts that can be viewed in-game called... Shortnitemares. Now that's what I call ghastly.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
Fortnite Festival Neko hatsune miku outfit
Hatsune Miku is the icon for Fortnite Festival Season 7, and it might be the collab that finally convinces me to become a rockstar
Chappell Roan singing into a microphone.
Chappell Roan’s idea of a good time is eating an edible then playing Fortnite as Ariana Grande, and she has a simple message for Epic: 'Please give me a skin, please'
A Guardian with a grenade launcher and a very fancy hat.
Destiny 2's new episode hits next week, sending players back into the giant, haunted spaceship where the first game had its finest moments
A pirate in World of Warcraft: Plunderstorm wears a joyous expression.
WoW's Plunderstorm mode is back, and it just lets you buy what you want with your in-game dubloons instead of having to grind
A hunter in Monster Hunter Wilds shows off their snazzy new earring while striking a pose.
Monster Hunter Wilds' next set of event quests let you snag a snazzy earring, plus armor and weapon decorations
v-bucks
Fortnite has 58 creators that got paid over $1 million in 2024, and 7 of those made over $10 million
Latest in Survival & Crafting
An April Fool's Day Palworld game concept about dating Pals
From Palworld movies to Palworld TV shows: 'Everyone under the sun pitched us every idea you can imagine,' says Pocketpair's communications director
Pacific Drive Endless Expeditions spring 2025 update trailer still - a sexy, tricked-out 1980s station wagon being blasted with magic healing electricity
Pacific Drive developers change their mind: A year after refusing to give it mid-run saves, it's getting mid-run saves
minecraft diamond level sword
Minecraft's never going free-to-play because as it stands it's 'the best deal in the world'
New shaders in Minecraft following Minecraft Live 2025
In the year of our lord 2025, Mojang is finally adding shaders to Minecraft, making reflective lighting and water effects more accessible for all
A dried ghast, a ghastling, and a friendly ghast all smiling
The latest Minecraft Live uncovered the tragic truth of the Nether's most bothersome mob, which has unlocked new levels of guilt
Three mobs in their regional forms in Minecraft Spring to Life update
Minecraft Spring to Life update: everything you need to know about the newest drop
Latest in News
A female Zoi making two hearts with her fingers.
Following 24 hours of Denuvo-based backlash, Inzoi is taking a surprising step and removing it entirely: 'We want to sincerely apologise for not aligning more closely with player expectations'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
An ancient, angry stone mech from No Man's Sky's new Relics update
No Man’s Sky lets you unearth ancient, angry mechs in the astro-archaeology filled Relics update
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April