I think the fortnite free battle pass is being blown out of proportion. The last two weeks of every season always stagnate as the majority of remaining players finish their battle pass and lose interest. These overtime challenges are merely designed to increase the player base for those last two weeks, and is probably why there are challenges for playing with friends and in squads, so you bring more people to these last few weeks. As for Fortnite stagnating, I will once again reiterate, it's the end of the season. Fortnite tends to go through a cycle where playership starts to rise at a season start, peaks around weeks 4-8, and then starts to dwindle as more and more players either max their battle pass or simply lose interest in the season. Give it two weeks and I'm sure you'll see that fortnite is doing fine. Apex is a good battle royale game, but it will only maintain a hardcore audience, which will likely only take a small portion from fortnites hardcore audience if any of them at all. If Apex fails to keep their game fresh with challenges and updates like fortnite does, it will not retain a sizable casual audience. Furthermore, the competitive nature of the game will make it hard for new players to join as the hardcore audience settles, if nothing is done to correct this, the game will complete kill it's causal audience and player number will stagnate.