'Fortnite' Sky Platform Locations, Map, Guide: Where to Visit 7 in Season 9
Expect a lot of challenges focused on these this season.
by Corey PlanteFortnite: Battle Royale Season 9, released Thursday, already has its expedition outpost and/or pirate camp equivalent in the form of “Sky Platforms.”
There are seven of these aptly named locations around the map, and one Week 1 challenge has players visit all of them. These platforms utilize the same futuristic air current technology as the Slipstream with four huge columns of wind suspending the platform very high into the air. There’s a medium-sized building on each platform with decent loot, and to actually get credit for visiting one, players do have to go to the platform itself. That means either landing directly there after the battle bus or using the air current columns to fly upwards.
The seven platforms are easy to see on the map because the rings that control the air flow are easily visible. They’re rather spread out, but you have to use your glider to get back down anyway, so traveling to several in a single match is easy.
Much like pirate camps, the sky platforms are evenly dispersed around the map — except they're in the sky.
What’s not so easy is that just like navigating the Slipstream loop, actually using these columns to travel doesn’t feel intuitive. The closest point of comparison might be going up or down in the volcano during Season 8, but even that isn’t a perfect point of comparison. You’d think you could just run right into the airflow and let it take your character up, right?
Wrong! When approaching from the ground, you have to move the camera to look directly up, and only then will your avatar will move in that direction. Otherwise, you’ll just awkwardly sputter and hover barely above the ground. If nobody’s around, we suggest trying to loot each platform. Otherwise, you might as well never let your feet touch the platform, and you can use the momentum to move onward to your next destination.
Moving between sky platforms is fairly easy, especially when there are still volcano vents out there that can help, along with pirate cannons, quadcrashers, and ballers. In some cases, the sky platforms are directly above pirate camps, where it’s all but guaranteed that you can find a cannon, or expedition outposts, that always have ziplines nearby.
The Sky Platform just north of Paradise Palms.
For what it’s worth, these platforms do resemble Supply Ships from Apex Legends, indicating that Epic Games is still paying attention to their biggest competitor. Fortnite already copied Apex Legends’ ping system and respawning system, and here we are in Season 9 with another example.
Of all the challenges we’ll see in Season 9, this is probably the only one that we recommend players wait on.
Like with expedition outposts in Season 7 and pirate camps in Season 8, sky platforms will probably appear in a handful of different challenges throughout Season 9. For now, we just have to visit all of them in different matches, but some variations in the past included visiting multiple pirate camps in a single match or eliminating enemy players near an expedition outpost. Before long, future challenges will force players to visit camps anyway, so why not wait for a point where you can complete two weekly challenges at once?
For players that complete challenges quickly in pursuit of Discovery challenges or the Season 9 utopia challenges, use our video and tips to complete this challenge ASAP.
According to the in-game countdown, Season 9 doesn’t end until July 23, so there’s still plenty of time to complete this and other challenges.
Fortnite: Battle Royale Season 9, Week 2 should begin Thursday, May 16.
