Fortnite’s pricey and controversial Peak skins look even worse now

Fortnite fans loading up the battle royale’s shop this week were shocked to see the price tag for a new cosmetic based on the beloved Steam hit, Peak. Though Fortnite replicates Peak‘s charming visuals, and though it offers a dizzying number of customization options, fans just couldn’t get over one thing: Epic Games is charging more for this single costume than developer Aggro Crab did for its entire game.

Peak, for those keeping score, retails for $7.99 and is routinely on sale via Valve’s PC storefront. The co-op climbing game has also received a number of totally free updates that meaningfully expand the experience with new mechanics and biomes. That low price, alongside Aggro Crab’s community-oriented mindset, is a huge part of why Peak took off the way it did in 2025. Aggro Crab underlined the importance of its pricing even further after one of its developers went viral for noting how $7.99 was basically five bucks in the eye of the consumer.

But if you want to be a scout in Fortnite, you’d better have your wallet at the ready. The basic Peak costume costs 2,000 V-bucks, which translates to about a little over $20 IRL. You could buy multiple copies of Peak for the same price! The purchase is even more expensive if you want to have extras, like the themed back bling or pickaxe.

Epic Games usually prices things like this to encourage people to spend just a little more on bundles, which, while more expensive, come across as a deal compared to purchasing cosmetics piecemeal. But a few things are pushing Fortnite‘s Peak skin price into egregious territory. The first applies to anything in the Fortnite shop: Epic Games recently increased the prices for all V-bucks. At the time, the Fortnite developers explained that “we’re raising prices to help pay the bills.” The statement was undoubtedly true, but the wording rubbed people the wrong way. It almost came across like Epic Games was trying to sound like a struggling indie developer, and not the proprietor of one of the most successful games in the world.

A couple of days later, the Peak price continues to leave a sour taste in people’s mouths. That exorbitant price sits alongside the recent Epic announcement that it would be laying off 1,000 workers and shutting down some of the less popular Fortnite modes. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney cited decreased player metrics and lower spending as some of the primary motivations behind the slashed employee count.

What the public is now seeing, then, is a company with arguably unreasonable pricing further jacking up those numbers … just to lay people off anyway. If the Fortnite community was unhappy before, this sequence of events has officially set the fandom on fire. Fans are openly discussing whether the game is done for, or if fans should consider dropping it in light of higher prices and layoffs.

“We can all see where the cash goes — directly into zero-effort UEFN maps, overpriced collaborations, and bonuses for C-suites making goddawful decisions at every turn,” one Redditor remarked today, in reference to the layoffs. “Make whatever decision you want, but maybe let today’s news be a point for reflection.”