Fortnite Season 9 has landed, and it brings a load of changes to every corner of Epic’s massively popular shooter. There’s a new Battle Pass (duh!) with loads of new cosmetics to collect, but that’s just the start — the map has been altered significantly, with new futuristic locations to blast defaults, new weapons to play with, new travel options, and much more.
Here, we’re going to break down all the changes in Fortnite: Battle Royale Season 9. With the destruction of Tilted Towers and Retail Row, both areas have been replaced — most of the major map changes are relegated to the top northeast corner of the map, so if you’re looking to check out what’s new, I recommend dropping up there for your first firefights of the season.
Season 9 started on 5/9/19 and will last 10 weeks — that’s 10 weeks of challenges, and probably a bunch more extra fresh content.
What Are The New Progressive Skins?
The Season 9 Progressive Skins included in the $9.99 / 950 V-Buck Battle Pass are Rox and Sentinel. You’ll be able to unlock 5 different ‘looks’ for Rox — at 10,000 / 50,000 / 100,00 / 200,000 XP. Sentinel unlocks their secondary style at Battle Pass Tier 99.
There are way more skins and cosmetics to unlock, themed after futuristic outfits and styles that match some of the new map areas in the game. The new cat pet Kyo can be unlocked, joining your dragon / dog pets in a variety of different color schemes.
What’s Changed On The Battle Royale Map?
The island has gone through some growing pains. After the dramatic volcanic eruption that destroyed Tilted Towers and Retail Row, new areas have popped up to replace the old.
Tilted Towers is now Neo Tilted, a futuristic city filled with new slipstream travel portals, giving you access to upper areas and a quick way to zip around the large arena. It’s much more complex and open. Perfect for trying out the new shotgun.
Retail Row was also demolished and replaced with Mega Mall — a massive, two-story interior structure that features a pretty barren parking lot outside. All the action is in the Mega Mall interior itself, which lends itself to close-range weapons. Be prepared for sneaky players laying traps and ambushes in this futuristic location.
Along with these new locations, you’ll also find a new Pressure Plant built over the lava flor — it’s a futuristic power plant addition to the volcano area. Slipstream portals have been added everywhere, which send your player flying when entering them. Finally, you’ll also encounter floating platforms all over the map.
How Do Slipstream Portals Work?
Slipstream portals are large circular devices that send your character flying around like a futuristic highway. These portals interconnect the many zones of the island map, letting you quickly travel to each of the named locations. You can even drive a vehicle into a Slipstream!
Slipstreams make it much, much easier to quickly escape one area, or to avoid the incoming storm. You’ll be a little vulnerable while traveling though; the Slipstreams are pretty high in the air, where anyone can see them. It’s worth the risk just for being so fun to ride.
There’s A New Shotgun (And Other Weapon Changes)
The Combat Shotgun is here to replace the Pump, which has been vaulted for now. The Combat Shotgun is a semi-auto, long-barreled shotgun with 10 shell magazine — it fires 9 pellets per shot, with a damage rate of 73/ 77 / 81.
There have been lots of other changes to the Battle Royale arsenal. The Pump has been vaulted, alongside a bunch of other weapons; the Suppressed Assault Rifle, the Scoped Revolver, Thermal Assault Rifle, and Balloons have all been vaulted. The Drum Gun and Boom Bow also reportedly spawn at a lower frequency than before.
There Are New Collectibles To Find
Any player can now also collect Fortbytes — a new type of collectible that’s being released weekly. Right now, 10 of these hidden collectibles are available in the Battle Royale map, but the mad scientists at Epic are going to release 10 more per week, for a total of 100 Fortbytes to find in Season 9.
What do that do? We have no idea, just that finding all the Fortbytes will unlock the ‘secrets of Season 9’ — it isn’t clear what that means yet.
Collecting Fortbytes isn’t easy, either. To find them, you’ll need to do a variety of tasks. Some are unlocked by finding them in the map, while others require specific actions with certain skins / emotes, or by completing weekly challenges. Sounds complicated? Well, it is!
All The Other Changes To Fortnite
Changes aren’t coming to only Battle Royale — Creative and Save The World are also getting updated. Creative gets new customization options (like the Hover Platform) and entirely new islands to build on. You’ll also find an more advanced Creature Manager.
Meanwhile, Save The World gains new quests, and an entirely new game mode.
