Rare Fortnite Cosmetic Returns to the Item Shop After Nearly 5 Years

An extremely rare cosmetic upgrade for the Fortnite pickaxe is back in the in-game item shop for players to pick up. The pickaxe is one of the rarest items in the Fortnite shop, as it hasn’t been available for multiple years.

Thanks in part to a business model based on regularly adding and selling cosmetic upgrades, Fortnite is practically bursting with an array of thousands of items for players to acquire. While many can be earned for free via the Battle Pass, more are sold in the in-game store. One problem with that model is that the Fortnite Item Shop rotation regularly brings items new and old in and out of availability. Inevitably, some players may miss out on a shop item they might’ve liked otherwise.

Some players might have been waiting longer than most, such as those who missed a chance to pick up the “Jagged Edge” pickaxe model. As confirmed by a post from Fortnite news account ShiinaBR, the Jagged Edge is back in the Item Shop for the first time in nearly five years. Technically speaking, the Jagged Edge is merely an Uncommon (Green) Rarity pickaxe, but what makes it one of the rarest pickaxes in Fortnite is the sheer amount of time that has passed since it was last available.

Fortnite Jagged Edge Pickaxe Returns After Almost 5 Years

As a mere Item Shop pickaxe, the Jagged Edge is a fairly mundane design: It is a dual-wield type Fortnite harvesting tool consisting of a pair of hand axes with spikes on the blades. Yet it hasn’t been included in the store rotation since August 2019. For context, that was midway through Fortnite Season 10, before the monumental events of “The End,” that saw the island destroyed by a black hole, and the universe reborn as Fortnite Chapter 2.

Perhaps it’s a testament to how long it has been since the last time the Jagged Edge was in the store that developer Epic Games has begun running original Fortnite OG seasons as limited-time events focused on nostalgic recall for earlier versions of the game. It seems almost quaint to be nostalgic for a game that, in the eyes of older players, is little older than a single console cycle, but it also demonstrates Fortnite‘s staying power since its earliest days, when it was first reinvented as a Battle Royale game to capitalize on the then-new trend sweeping multiplayer gaming.