Battle for Dream Island Elsewhere - First Impressions

— WARNING: Contains spoilers for the episode and the entire show. —

Today is January 1, 2026, which actually marks quite a few milestones for jacknjellify. Of course it's the 16-year anniversary of Battle for Dream Island, but also the 10-year anniversary of when jacknjellify ended their 2-year hiatus on YouTube. Additionally, since it's the 16th anniversary of BFDI, we might eventually get Thanks for 4 years of Thanks for 4 years of Thanks for 4 years of Thanks for 4 years! Though maybe not.

Anyways, since Christmas they've been teasing that something would release today. It started with just a YouTube Short featuring the Announcer and the date, and then they announced a livestream marathon of all 99 episodes of BFDI so far, which would culminate in the release of this, the 100th episode of the show. Lastly, there was one more post that came out while the livestream was going, which resembled a previous post that teased BFDIA 6, which got me in the mindset that this would have to do with an older season or style of the show.

A lot of people assumed it would be TPOT 21, or even IDFB 2 (which I didn't think would happen due to the BFDI Is Snack video mentioning the Spring Equinox). My personal theory (although one I did not want to happen) was that it would be some form of remake/remaster of the first season, maybe having to do with how Pencil was sent back to the past by One in TPOT 19.

Fortunately, instead of any of those, it is a completely new season with new characters: Battle For Dream Island Elsewhere!

This season appears to be much more lighthearted, both within the actual show and its production, as BFDIE 2 is already announced to be coming out in a week. Additionally, it's mostly new characters (with some technically taken from BFDI Mini) aside from David, and the Announcer who is back to host the whole thing.

The only real bits of "lore" so far is that this season apparently takes place during the original BFDI (so I was kinda close!), as the Announcer would sneak off to host this during it, according to the opening. Also his spaceship is involved as he's trying to learn how land it successfully.

Aside from that, he just starts a game with the nine people on his ship, two other people he found where he landed who were bouncing on a trampoline, and David.

The contestants are not competing for Dream Island, but rather a terrible island that the winner can get to decide who gets to be trapped in. It's described as essentially the opposite of Dream Island, so I'm calling it Nightmare Moon for the time being.

The first challenge is for the contestants to each climb a pole. The usual BFDI shenanigans occur, with a random pole that's super deadly for no apparent reason, some contestants getting distracted, people declaring each other as enemies and making alliances, and some fun stuff with the trampoline that was there.

The episode is only 8 minutes long (including credits and other stuff) so I really recommend checking it out! I sort of outlined what happened here, but the whole thing is definitely worth checking out regardless, simply due to its comedy.

This season seems to feature a different format than the standard seasons. Instead of having the viewers vote on who gets eliminated, or even the contestants themselves, the contestant who got last place in the challenge was eliminated. This ended up being Hot Dog, who was assigned the deadly pole but was also too stubborn to change to another one.

However, we still get to vote! In the comments we can still vote for our favourite contestant, which "will be important soon", though we have no idea what this will actually lead to yet, but I am okay with that! It seems we can still vote for Hot Dog despite him being eliminated, so that could be fun — though I don't know how many people will/have noticed that.

And that's about it! I already love this new season. I am a big fan of jacknjellify, have been for a long time, but I've been worried that they might cling to the same format they've had for the last 6 years or so for the future, but this makes it very clear that that's not the case.

I am very excited to see where this show goes, and I wish the best of luck to the JnJ team with it!