Epic Games have detailed their latest update for the hit battle royale title, Fortnite.
The new update comes with a few welcomed surprises as well as some sad goodbyes. To start things off, a new grenade has entered the playing field; the new chiller grenade freezes players allowing you to take full advantage of eliminating them.
A new limited time mode has also been added, this time around the mode is called Solid Gold in where everything in the match is gold — gold scars, gold snipers, etc.
And finally, the sad news of the new vaulted guns. Bolt-action Sniper Rifle, Burst Rifle, Heavy Shotgun, and the SMG. That’s a lot of guns getting vaulted this week.
Check out the full set of patch notes down below:
BATTLE ROYALE
WHAT’S NEW?
Chiller Grenade
Warning: May cause cold toes. Chill your enemies to the core with this new item, it’s a blast!
Mobile Controller Support
Bluetooth controller support has arrived in mobile on supported devices! Drop in and earn a Victory in a whole new way.
LIMITED TIME MODE: SOLID GOLD
Summary
All things that glitter are gold in this Limited Time Mode! All weapon spawns are Legendary with increased material gathering. Drop in now and earn that Victory Royale.
Mode Details
- All weapon drops are Legendary.
- Increased amount of materials received from gathering.
WEAPONS + ITEMS
- Chiller Grenade
- The Chiller Grenade will knock players back, causing them to slide along the ground.
- Allies, enemies, and vehicles hit with the Chiller Grenade will slip around with icy feet/wheels for a duration of 7 seconds.
- Drops in stacks of 3.
- Max stack size of 6.
- Common rarity.
- Can be found from Floor Loot and Vending Machines.
- Cozy Campfire – Updated Visuals
- We’ve updated the visual effects of Cozy Campfires to more clearly indicate when a campfire is in use or burnt out.
- Vaulted
- Bolt-action Sniper Rifle
- Burst Rifle
- Heavy Shotgun
- SMG
- Common, Uncommon, and Rare
- Unvaulted
- Suppressed SMG
- Common, Uncommon, and Rare
- Suppressed SMG
- Reduced the drop chance of Dual Pistol from floor loot from 2.24% to 1.38%.
Bug Fixes
- Balloons no longer collide with vehicles.
- This resolves an issue where vehicles could be damaged when using Balloons while on a vehicle.
GAMEPLAY
- Memory and networking optimization for Apples and Mushrooms.
- Added unique vehicle specific messages in the feed when players are eliminated or downed.
- Edit Delay
- Re-enabled client-side editing improvements.
- These were turned off in 7.20 due to an input bug they were causing.
- Fixed Boogie Bombs not affecting players that are wearing the Sneaky Snowman when struck on exposed legs/feet.
- Fixed Sneaky Snowman’s last charge breaking away right after applying if another Sneaky Snowman is present in a different inventory slot.
- Fixed an issue where the glider would auto-deploy closer to the ground than expected when holding glider redeploy from the bus.
- Fixed the X-4 Stormwing’s health bar occasionally not displaying.
- Fixed an issue where players could get stuck in a Sneaky Snowman if it landed next to them.
- Increased the amount of materials gained from looting Chests and Floor Loot from 20 to 30.
- Increased the number of materials received from Supply Drops from 40 to 60.
Bug Fixes
- Aim assist now targets enemies on vehicles rather than the base of the vehicles they’re occupying.
- Quickly switching to Traps then weapons on gamepads no longer causes players to shoot or swing pickaxes.
- Supply Drop balloons now take environmental damage, including damage from explosives or biplanes gun.
- Fixed instances of a free wall piece showing as placeable but not building.
- Fixed player cameras from becoming distorted when another player enters a Zipline.
- Fixed an issue where the magnet on the Zipline could be invisible on use.
- Fixed an issue where boost visual effects could appear while operating a vehicle near a Zipline.
- Players can now properly progress through and complete the Week 4 “Use an X-4 Stormwing plane in different matches” Challenge.
- Screens no longer shake uncontrollably after after walking on icy surfaces.
- Players will no longer lose the ability to turn the X-4 Stormwing after hitting terrain/structures.
PLAYGROUND
- The Guided Missile has been removed from Playgrounds.
- Removed the Spiky Stadium Supply Drop.
- This will remove the ability to loot the Spiky Stadium as well as Impulse Grenades.
- This was done due to an issue that was sending players back to the Lobby.
EVENTS
- New Tournament Added: Architect Pop-Up Cup (Solo, Duo, and Squads)
- Settings from previous Pop-Up Cup tournaments still apply to this tournament.
- Within this mode, player built structures can now be edited by any player, regardless of team status.
- This is an experiment that we’d like to try out in this testing environment, but aren’t quite sure of the full impact. We’d love to hear feedback from your experiences playing with this change.
- Tournaments may now feature leaderboards for each event session, highlighting top performers.
- Participating in tournaments now requires a minimum account level of 10.
PERFORMANCE
Bug Fixes
- Smoothed out drops in framerate that could happen with large changes in view direction and rendered character counts.
AUDIO
- Added a fuse sound to the Grenade.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed emote music overlapping with lobby music depending on the way volume sliders were configured.
UI
- Show total party eliminations on the HUD if your team wins.
- Added additional models to the “Cycle Models” list when viewing Wraps in the Battle Pass or Item Shop.
- The party colors have been restored to Blue, Red, Purple, and Yellow. To distinguish players in LTMs like Food Fight.
- There are new icons for non-squad teammates and the opponent icons on the minimap.
- Rotating the camera on the Battle Bus no longer has an oscillating/swimming effect on the minimap.
- Fixed an issue in the Net Debug UI that would cause it to show a ping value that was too high.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed issue where weapons were not equipping when double-clicking in the inventory after swapping their quickbar slots.
- Fix an issue where teammates scores would not be displayed.
- Fixed incorrect elimination count information occurring in large team modes.
- Fixed player sorting order in the player reporting UI.
- Fixed an issue where some of the leaderboard UI could sometimes blink repeatedly.
- Fixed an issue where the ‘Spectator’ button in the Player Reporting menu would only select the first player you spectated.
- Fixed an issue where the playlist selection screen could sometimes show an incorrect selection after leaving a party.
- Fixed a display issue with the item pick-up prompt that would sometimes occur after opening an ammo box.
- Fix lobby preview lengths of Pumpernickel, Running Man, Dance Therapy, and Hot Marat emotes.
ART + ANIMATION
- Celebrate Super Bowl LIII with new Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots uniforms added to the Fourth Down Outfit set. Drop in and represent your favorite team!
- All players who previously purchased the Fourth Down set will be granted these variants.
REPLAY
Bug Fixes
- Fixed weapon animations playing twice for each shot fired in replays.
- Fixed an issue where camera/lens settings could display incorrect initial values.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to play an out of date replay selects another replay.
- Fixed players appearing jittery while using Ziplines in replays.
- Fixed Boombox music not playing when watching replays.
SOCIAL
- The Streamer Mode setting has been replaced with two separate settings:
- Anonymous Mode
- This will display your name as “Anonymous” to all players that are not in your squad.
- Your account info will still be attached to reports submitted by other players using the Player Reporting feature.
- Hide Other Player Names
- This will display all other player names as “Player” unless they are in your squad.
- Neither of these settings will be functional when playing in a Tournament match.
- Anonymous Mode
Bug Fixes
- Party Invite Notifications will now appear when in the Game Mode select screen. Accepting the invite from the notification will take you to the proper game mode and join the party.
- Fixed an issue that could cause some party members to fail to matchmake with a “Version Mismatch” error if a party member joined, readied up, and matchmaking was started in rapid succession.
MOBILE
- Mobile Controller support
- Android: most of Bluetooth controller adapters, such as Steelseries Stratus XL, Gamevice, XBox1, Razer Raiju, and Moto Gamepad.
- iOS: MFi controllers, such as Steelseries Nimbus and Gamevice.
- Disabled phone vibration if a gamepad attached.
- 60Hz on select Android models
- We are rolling out 60Hz support (to be enabled in settings) on select Android devices. We have been working with our partners on optimizations and are rolling this out initially on the following specific models.
- Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (USA variant)
- Huawei Honor View 20
- Huawei Mate 20 X
- Added audio visualization icons for vehicles and Balloons
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue causes players to be unable to build multiple structure types while simultaneously holding down the build button and changing build types.
- Fixed Harvesting Tool button no longer swaps back to the previously selected weapon
- Fixed Multiple simultaneous button presses on mobile can disable the fire button
- Fixed No padlock icon appears on the directional pad when locking with auto-run on mobile.
- Fixed Several UI buttons having lower resolution than the other buttons.
CREATIVE
WHAT’S NEW?
Piano Keys + Music Blocks
Jam out in Creative! Become a musician with these two new additions and imagine your very own original tracks.
Arctic Base Prefabs
Imagine and create your own frozen wonderland with the newest Prefabs available in Creative mode.
ISLANDS
- Added an option to set edit permission per player on your Island.
GAMEPLAY
- New option to control respawn times.
- Range 1 – 30 seconds.
- New option added to end games.
- The first team to reach a set number of eliminations wins.
- Range 1 – 10 or Off.
- The first team to reach a set number of eliminations wins.
- New option added: “After Last Spawn Go To Team”
- After running out of spawns in a game, you can now either become a spectator or be switched to a different team depending on the game’s settings.
- Range includes “Spectator” and “Team 1 – 16”.
- The Game Stats screen displayed after Creative games conclude now contains buttons for immediately restarting the game and restoring the Island.
- Increased the speed that Islands load after a game.
- Renamed “Game Modes” to “Score Preset” to better clarify what that option does.
- When joining a game in progress, players are now put in spectator mode until the game ends.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a server crash that could occur when a prefab was despawned.
- Fixed an out of memory server crash.
- Fixed Storm damage not applying if the health mutator was set to invincible.
- Creative mode games now properly set player orientation as well as location.
- Fixed spawn direction to always face the same direction when spawning.
- Fixed the Victory Royale animation when using Last Standing option.
- Fixed an issue where games would not end if a player was spectating.
- Fixed an issue where joining players would occasionally be able to play a Creative game despite having exceeded respawn limits.
- Fixed an issue where players would occasionally return to the Creative Hub in Spectate Mode.
- Fixed an issue where players could go outside of the playspace of the Creative Hub.
WEAPONS + ITEMS
- Chiller Grenade added to Creative alongside its release to Battle Royale.
- Removed Guided Missile.
- Fixed the Wood Resource quantity to be consistent with the other material resources in the Creative Consumables screen.
- Fixed an issue where the Six Shooter displayed incorrect rarity color in the Creative Weapons menu and game.
- Fixed an issue where some Balloons would remain stuck in the air after being equipped.
CREATIVE TOOLS + PHONE
- Added a drop indicator when holding copied prefab assets or props in the sky, to better predict drop placement.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed cases where players had Creative permissions on Islands they did not own or have rights to.
- Fixed an issue where sections of a prefab would disappear and reappear when copying with the Phone tool.
- Fixed an issue where the Phone tool would occasionally disappear upon ending a game on a Creative island.
PREFABS
- Added 6 Arctic Base Prefabs.
- Added Arctic Base Galleries
- Added a new Piano Key Gallery.
- Added a Music Blocks Gallery.
- Added an Ambient Gallery, which offers 8 color variance of Torches, Glow Sticks and Spotlights
- Added a Challenge Gallery, which are new elements that disappear when ran through by the player. More functionality coming in future updates.
- Added Random Chest and Ammo Box Gallery.
- Spawn rates use the latest Battle Royale loot rates.
- Added Windmill to the Farmstead Gallery.
- Added additional Winter Village Building Color Gallery.
- Added a Challenge Gallery, which are new props that disappear when ran through by the player. More functionality coming in future updates.
- Torches now cast light with shadow casting disabled.
DEVICES
- New Starting Inventory Device added,
- Allows you to choose what players start within their inventory during games. Works just like the Item Spawner except items are not spawned but added to the player’s inventory at the start of games.
- Assign a team to the device to give items to a specific team only.
- New Barrier Zone added.
- This is a zone you can place that creates collision barriers that prevent players from moving past them.
- New Movement Modulator added.
- Allows you to change the speed of a player or vehicle
- Speed options are Super Slow, Very Slow, Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast, Super Fast
- You can set a duration in seconds 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120.
- When an Item Spawner has finished spawning all of its items during a game, its visual effects turn off to indicate it’s dormant.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue causing Item Spawners to stop spawning new items if the item it spawned was combined with a nearby pickup of the same type.
- Removed extraneous stats from vehicle spawner devices.
- Sentries will no longer reload infinitely when running out of their range.
- Duplicate Sentry has been removed from Traps.
- Fixed the Christmas Tree that was appearing in prefabs that would shrink when grabbed by the Phone.
- Fixed an issue with the Ice Cliffs were they would lose collision when grabbed by the Phone.
- Fixed an issue with the Elimination Zone where the visual effects would not rotate with the trap.
- Fixed an issue where the Elimination Zone displayed an incorrect mesh upon placement.
- Fixed an issue where the Elimination Zone visual effects were not displayed correctly when the boundary limit was changed.
- Fixed an issue with the Elimination Zone where the boundary settings would occasionally return to default.
- Fixed an issue where players could not attach the Elimination Zone to walls.
- Fixed an issue where players with invincibility settings were not affected by the Elimination Zone.
- Fixed an issue where players who were down-but-not-out were unaffected by the Elimination Zone.
- Fixed an issue where traps were not destroyed after harvesting the floor underneath them.
- Fixed an issue where the effects from the Ice Block trap would trigger before players stepped onto the tile.
- Fixed an issue where adjacent Sentries were destroyed when damaging one with a Sniper Rifle in a Creative game.
- Fixed an issue where the lantern from the Lucky Landing Gallery would fall through the map when attempting to paste it in a Creative island.
- Fixed an issue where the vines from the Nature Snow Gallery and the Nature Shrub Gallery would fall out of the map when attempting to paste them in a Creative island.
UI
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where elimination counts would not be correct for other teammates when playing in large team modes, Playgrounds, and Creative mode.
- Fixed a crash related to Player Suggestions.
- Fixed an additional potential input loss that could result from receiving a gift while viewing the Add Friends screen.
- Fixed an issue where “Victory Royale” would occasionally fail to display at the end of a Creative game.
- Fixed an issue where “Victory Royale” would occasionally be presented to the wrong player after a Creative game ends.
- Fixed an issue where vehicles were displaying the damage stats of traps in the UI.
- Fixed overlapping Seat Switch and Rotate buttons on the mobile platform.
- Fixed an issue with a settings tooltip getting cut off screen.
- Fixed an issue where mobile players did not have a dedicated button to fly downward, in Create mode.
- Fixed an issue where players were prompted to ‘edit’ player built structures even though the setting to Block Building in Game was turned on.
- Fixed an issue where players were shown build previews on player built structures though the Block Building in Game was turned on.
PERFORMANCE
- Optimized performance when using the Phone.
- Fixed an issue where players would run into low frame rate and instability when placing a lot of torches, from the Castle prefab, in a small area.
Fortnite Battle Royale is now available to download for free on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and the Nintendo Switch.