The Mandalorian can snipe players before they land in Fortnite

This Fortnite Season’s premier crossover character, Disney’s The Mandalorian, is a featured NPC that players can defeat in order to win a mythic sniper rifle.

I ALMOST WON A SOLO SQUAD GFAME IN MANDO'S BOUNTY BUT YOU KNOW MANDALORIAN CAN HEADSHOT SNIPE YOU MID AIR

— Bruno Zipper (@BrunoZipper) February 3, 2021

But Fortnite players that have been a little overeager to land near the Mandalorian have found out the hard way that he’s willing to put up a fight. As shared on some videos, the Mandalorian can even snipe players as they drop in, ending their game before they ever touch the ground.

Why land near the Mandalorian in Fortnite?

If the Mandalorian were just a roaming NPC boss fight, it would be a lot more problematic, but he spawns in a consistent location, which at least allows Fortnite players the chance to play around this hazard.

Anyone eager to hunt the hunter just needs to make sure they land far enough away to avoid aggravating him in flight. This will also give players a chance to arm up before taking on the fight.

This is the standard way to approach any boss fight in Fortnite, though it is usually less of an issue with others as they either have shorter range weapons, or are located within an enclosed location.

Should the landing phase of Fortnite be tweaked?

the point is that epic thought it would be a fun and good idea to add the fkn mandalorian that can snipe you out of the fkn air

— kyu (@kyushiqt) January 4, 2021

In part of the discussion about the Mandalorian sniping players out of the air, some people brought up the idea that Fortnite should give players some kind of invulnerability during their drops to prevent players from dying before they ever get to land. Landing early and shooting players out of the sky has always been a part of Fortnite, though not everyone has been happy with it. Should it be removed?

If players were given invulnerability until the moment they landed it would remove a lot of the incentive to get better at the airdrop phase of the game. Currently, players are encouraged to learn the skills necessary to drop as efficiently as possible from a variety of angles. If they succeed, they can grab weapons earlier and start shooting players still trying to land, while failing puts them at risk of getting shot themselves.

This dynamic, however, heavily skews the risk-reward structure. Success rewards players with the first access to loot while failure potentially ends their game. Even landing just a moment too late could mean losing out on a contested weapon and being eliminated right at the start.

While it’s not something that absolutely needs to be changed, Epic should consider looking deeper into it to see if they might want to adjust this dynamic to balance out the risk and rewards so that it’s not quite so polarizing.