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Fortnite Ice Storm challenges: Destroy golden ice brutes and ranged ice fiends

Need help with the Day 3 'Fortnite' Ice Storm challenges? We've got you covered

Fortnite season seven continues to barrel onward as we approach the end of it. However, Epic Games is making sure it goes out with a bang, introducing yet another Limited Time Event for players to take on. Similar to the recent 14 Days of Fortnite last month, the Fortnite Ice Storm challenges are available for players to complete in addition to the weekly ones.

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The new Ice Storm challenges typically revolve around some new ice fiend enemies that players have to find and defeat. These enemies are NPC’s, similar to the monsters you may have encountered during the Fortnitemares event last Halloween. The best part of this new Limited Time Event is that it comes with a ton of awesome rewards that players can get for completing its challenges.

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Fortnite Ice Storm challenges explained

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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There are new challenges being added to the Ice Storm event every day and all players can take these challenges, regardless if they are a season seven Battle Pass owner or not. This is especially important because Ice Storm challenges reward players with experience that can be used to level up and gain tiers quickly. Since there are only a few weeks left in season seven of Battle Royale, every single experience point will help you get closer to reaching that coveted tier 100 and receiving the exclusive Ice King legendary skin.

Two of the biggest challenges that players are having trouble with in the Ice Storm event are the ranged ice fiends and golden ice brutes challenges. These two are very similar to one another and while they sound simple they are pretty hard to execute. The first challenge tasks the player with defeating 150 ranged ice fiends, which are a lot of enemies to kill. The second challenge’s objective is to destroy 20 golden ice brutes, which are the rarest and hardest to beat in the game currently. Needless to say, both challenges are easier said than done.

Fortnite ranged ice fiends explained

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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Let’s start off with the easier challenge, which is killing the ranged ice fiends. These enemies are a more powerful version of the frozen zombie enemies that make up the Ice Legion. They will spawn in various areas where there’s an ice shard located. If you did the Fortnitemares limited time event, this will be extremely familiar to you.

What makes the ranged ice fiends stand out from the normal ones is that their bodies are glowing and a tad bit bigger than your average ice fiend. Also, as the name implies, they are able to launch projectiles at you from afar, which makes taking them out much harder than the other melee-focused enemies. For this challenge, we are going to need to kill at least 150 of them to finish it.

Where to find Fortnite ranged ice fiends

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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Given how many of the fiends there are, we recommend queuing up in the Ice Storm squads mode so that you can work with a team. Unfortunately, you can’t complete this challenge in the big team modes like Team Rumble, but squads is still a good mode for taking them out. Like we mentioned earlier, these enemies spawn whenever there is an ice shard nearby.

So, to find the ranged ice fiends, we recommend that you head to the nearest ice shard. Unfortunately, unlike the Fortnitemares challenge, the locations of the ice shards are extremely random. Thankfully, though, they appear all over the Battle Royale map and not just in the snowy southwestern quadrant. That’s because the entire Battle Royale map is now covered in snow, including the desert section in the southeast area.

Grab your teammates and head to whichever location you want to. We recommend trying a few of the named locations that aren’t super popular like Snobby Shores, Pleasant Park, Lonely Lodge, and so on. In these less visited areas, you won’t have to deal with that many enemy players in the game while looking for the ice fiends for this challenge. We recommend stocking up on supplies, guns, and the like in a named location and then looking around the perimeter of the area for nearby ice shards.

How to kill Fortnite ranged ice fiends

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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The ice shards are huge, lumbering pillars of ice like in the screenshot above. As you approach the ice shard, the ice fiends will begin to spawn. You will typically see the standard fiend, the standard brute, and a couple of ranged ice fiends. The ranged ice fiends are a little less common than the others so completing this challenge does take some determination and patience.

The best method for killing the ranged ice fiends is a ranged weapon. Sniper rifles, scoped assault rifles, and so on are great for taking out these ranged enemies before they can take you out. If you’re having trouble killing these enemies quickly, we recommend taking out the normal fiends first as they will give you a bit of shield for each kill you get, which can protect you from the ranged ice fiends. Be sure to keep moving as they will chase after you and you don’t want to be overwhelmed by them. That leads to death quickly.

As for other weapons that are best for killing the ranged ice fiends, we also recommend the mounted turret. This stationary weapon is great for mowing down fiends while you take shots from safety. If you don’t have that, any explosives you can find are great as well. The recently released boom box is great for distracting the enemies, too. Remember, 150 ice fiends is a lot so it can take a few matches to do this.

Where to find golden ice brutes

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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Next up in this Fortnite Ice Storm challenge guide is destroying the golden ice brutes. You’re tasked with killing far less of these; only 20 of them. However, this is because they are much more powerful, have a ton of health, and are much harder to find. They are a stronger version of the standard brute, towering over other ice fiends and much wider around.

Like the standard ice brute, they have a lot of health but even more than your average ice brute. They are noted by their bright golden appearance so you definitely can’t miss them when they spawn. Like the ranged ice fiends, you can find the golden ice brutes from just about any ice shard. The only problem with this is getting them to spawn.

The golden ice brutes tend to spawn in the middle to later sections of a Battle Royale match. Basically, when there are about 50 players or less. We recommend stocking up in the meantime and making your way to the next circle to spend time while you wait. When it’s around halfway through the match, that’s when we suggest you start heading to an ice shard. If a golden ice brute doesn’t quickly spawn within a minute, move on to another ice shard.

How to kill golden ice brutes

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
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Now, let’s say you finally get a golden ice brute to spawn at an ice shard. This is where the real fun begins. These giants have a ton of health that you have to blast through in order to kill them and complete this challenge. This is why it’s important that you do this with a squad since it isn’t easy at all to kill it by yourself.

While it’s relatively easy to stay away from the golden ice brute and attack from afar, you still have to contend with other potential players and the normal ice fiends at the same time. Needless to say, you can get overwhelmed and die quickly. Considering there aren’t any respawns in this mode, that’s something you don’t want to happen.

We recommend building structures to defend against the Ice Legion while you focus on the golden ice brute. It’s also good to have one teammate distract the enemies, like in our case, while the others attack. Like with the ranged ice fiends, ranged weapons, explosives, and the mounted turret are going to be your best friend for this challenge.

The fiend hunter crossbow is also really great for taking out the enemies, due to its unlimited ammo and powerful shots. However, you do need to have good aim with the crossbow to really utilize it since it only fires one arrow at a time. To complete this challenge, you will need to kill 20 brutes. We typically found no more than two per match due to limited time so this could take you a few matches.

Fortnite Ice Storm rewards

fortnite ice storm challenges golden ice brutes
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Both the ranged ice fiends challenge and the golden ice brutes challenge will grant you some goodies for completing them. Let’s start with the ranged ice fiends challenge. Completing this one will grant you 500 experience, which will take a nice chunk out of most levels. Defeating the 20 golden ice brutes will also net you 500 experience. In addition, if you are able to complete four more Ice Storm challenges in addition to these two, you will get an exclusive wrap for your weapons.

Cody Perez
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Cody is that stereotypical nerdy otaku guy. He loves everything Japanese from niche visual novels like 999 and Kara no Shoujo…
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