Lego Fortnite adds big new Star Wars world this week

Lego Fortnite, the survival crafting experience found within Fortnite itself, is adding a huge new Star Wars mode this Friday, 3rd May.

The permanent addition comes as part of a Star Wars celebration across all four of Epic Games' main Fortnite modes: battle royale, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival. But it's the Lego experience which looks by far the most impressive.

A fresh Star Wars-themed Lego World will become available within the Lego Fortnite mode that offers a Rebel Village for you to build up and grow using Star Wars parts and materials, and which features unique Star Wars characters.

There are nearby Imperial camps based around the wreckage of a crashed Star Destroyer, Lego lightsabers and other weapons to wield, and a selection of Star Wars buildings to construct, including the Mos Eisley cantina.

It's a major addition for Lego Fortnite, and one which Epic Games states repeatedly will stick around after this Friday's upcoming update comes and goes - unlike other seasonal additions to Fortnite, which regularly depart its main battle royale Island as the next in-game catastrophe/brand deal rears its head.

The only downside seems to be that all this takes place in a separate Lego Fortnite world to any you've been building so far. Think of it like a separate Lego Fortnite game, or a specificly modded mode, perhaps.

All of this comes free, though there's an event pass that includes a stack of Lego Fortnite builds for your world with a paid-for track that includes a Chewbacca skin you can also use in Fortnite battle royale. It's priced at 1400 V-Bucks, which roughly equates to about a tenner, and is the first such pass for Lego Fortnite. I'd imagine plenty of players pick it up just to use the skin in battle royale, with its Lego items designed as a nudge back into that mode.

Speaking of other modes, Fortnite's main battle royale offering will see Chewbacca appear on the map as an AI character you can recruit to aid you, with his Wookie Bowcaster weapon also added for a limited time. Darth Vader returns to the Island as a boss character, and will drop his lightsaber as a Mythic weapon (it looks like his will be the only lightsaber on offer in battle royale this time around).

In Fortnite Festival, the game's Rock Band-style offering developed by Harmonix, you'll be able to jam to the Cantina Band song and unlock Star Wars instruments. In Rocket Racing, the arcade racer built by Psyonix, there are podracing and horny Darth Maul cosmetics to unlock and a Mandalorian-inspired car to buy.

Phew.