Fortnite today saw a brief downtime period as Epic Games pushed out a highly requested maintenance patch for one of the game’s most recent additions.
Fortnite went into a brief downtime period today at 4 AM ET as Epic Games sought to implement a maintenance patch that would address a lot of criticism surrounding one of the game’s most recent additions, the Shockwave Hammer. Odds are if you’ve been playing Fortnite over the last few weeks or even just seen clips online you will have spotted the Shockwave Hammer in use. The item was added as part of Fortnite’s chapter 4 revamp and was disabled from a number of competitive modes in the game recently as players found a way to repeatedly spam the item allowing them to travel large distances without having to wait on the weapon’s cooldown.
Many players have been criticizing the item since it was added in Fortnite Chapter 4 with the update being welcomed by most fans. The Shockwave Hammer isn’t the only item that has been put under scrutiny since Epic’s move to Unreal Engine 5. Fortnite’s new visuals and gameplay were created in Unreal Engine 5.1 which introduced a new Island map and a brand-new augment system. Despite these additions, the game has seen a number of bugs and issues pop up since the transition.
Alongside issues with the Shockwave Hammer, Epic was also forced to reevaluate and remove the game’s new vaulting mechanic that allowed players to hurdle over objects with ease. Equally, Epic also removed the game’s Deku Smash ability which was a major component of their My Hero Academia crossover event. Whether these changes to the game will have a positive effect on the game’s performance is still yet to be seen. If you’re looking to try and unlock some of Fortnite’s midseason style then why not check out our guide on How to Unlock Midseason Style? Equally, if you’re interested in picking up Fortnite’s brand-new guardian shields we also have a guide on how to find and use to item.
The next scheduled maintenance for Fortnite is scheduled to start next week and will see the game move to its v23.20 content update. If you’re looking to dive into Fortnite after this update you can play the game on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, Mac, and PC.
