Video Games

In case you didn’t catch the news, and it feels like it wasn’t exactly, “big news”, the Harris/Walz campaign has launched a Fortnite map as part of their effort to promote the Presidential campaign.  This was met with many people asking why they would try to market to a bunch of kids, which was met with the appropriate response that, there are plenty of voting age adults who play Fortnite, and the game is old enough that a lot of people who started as kids, are also old enough to vote.

It’s still kind of debatable if this map will really have any effect on anything, probably not.  It’s also not 07the first time Presidential Candidates have tried to “attract the young people vote” using “young people things”.  Biden/Harris apparently had an Animal Crossing map, Sarah Palin had a weird Steampunk comic book.

Seriously though, just look at this…

Anyway, the Harris/Walz map is called “Freedom Town USA”, which is a bit unfortunate because if you search for “Harris” in the map search, you get all of these click bate games.  There’s like, 5 people on these clickbait maps though, so I guess it’s not really a big deal.  

To make things even easier, the map code for Freedom Town USA is 733155366547.  Just search on that.  That’s why we have map codes.

Anyway, the map itself.  Just before anyone gets some weird idea about how custom maps work in Fortnite, this is not a battle map.  There are no guns, the game itself isn’t even all about guns at it’s core anymore, it has LEGO and a Music mode and a racing mode, and many custom player created maps, often with no weapons like tycoon idle maps and obstacle course maps.

The Harris/Walz map is… sort of an obby map.  I guess.  One of the main modes I used to play was obstacle courses (Deathruns) and this one is extremely weak if it were part o that category.  It takes place in a large generic city space, covered in inspirational billboards with Harris and Walz names on them.  You have several objectives to run through to complete the map, and there is no reward for finishing the map.  The objectives are essentially split across three parts.

During part 1, you head to 4 different places in the city, at, roughly the 4 cardinal edges of the map, to collect construction gear by doing various tasks.  Two of these tasks are short, weak obby courses.  One is a series of mini games, and the last is a short dirt bike race.  Oh wait, I guess I lied, there is a weapon, one of the mini games has you shooting targets with a bow.  There were other players around, I didn’t think to see what happens if you shoot the bow at them.

After collecting all 4 tools, you head to the center of the city to a little construction yard where you run around collecting construction material hidden around the containers to “build” a house.  This is the only part of the map with a real campaign message as there are pop up messages about Harris’ plans for helping out people dealing with the housing price crisis.

After finishing construction of the house you head to an elevator to the roof of a building.  Your first task is to collect 5 campaign posters which have blown away in the wind, they are all extremely easy to locate.  Then you go through another short and lame obby section before riding a loooong grind rail over the city to arrive at a campaign rally thing populated by Fortnite characters.

I was a little lost on my first try, and tried to take my motorbike into the elevator, which bugged the map and sent me trapped under the map.  On the second try, when I knew what to do, it took about 15 minutes to complete the whole run.  This includes a few minutes afterwards screwing around trying to jump off the building after the campaign rally.  Which you can’t do.  It just zaps you back.  You can’t escape the rally.  A few other slightly amusing notes…

• I kind of feel like having obstacle courses in construction areas is not really up to “OSHA standards”.
• The house you build is surrounded by barbed wire, which points inward, which implies keeping people trapped inside.  Hmmmm.
• None of the characters at the final rally are licensed.  I remember seeing some repeats of Jonsey and Midas and some other very boring Fortnite characters
• You can sort of steal the hoverboard from the hoverboard race bit it doesn’t really drive on land and disappears as soon as you get off.
• You can steal a bike from the race.
• There are cars near the initial spawn I missed my first run.  It’s much easier to navigate the city with a car.
• The radio does not work in the car.  Probably to avoid the “illusion of an endorsement”
• You can’t emote on the map, which is lame and boring.
• The gold coins you collect seem to serve no purpose.
• The entire map is pretty well designed, except the house you “build”, which feels really weirdly build and has a lot of alignment and clipping issues.
• There are various USA Landmarks around the map to see, like the Statue of Liberty, the Gateway Arch, and the Liberty Bell.
• There is some vague LGBTQ+ representation on the signs, they are few but some are rainbow designed
• The map seems to only support maybe 4 people max.

Anyway, I always find these weird random cross-promotion maps interesting, and it’s kind of a shame they probably just sort of vanish into the ether after a while as the game updates.  As far as I can see there isn’t a “Trump Map”. If there was it actually would be kind of amusing if it also didn’t have any weapons allowed.