Fortnite's New Compact SMG Is Tearing Through Buildings

Fortnite has a new weapon called the Compact SMG that already looks like it's tearing through players and bolstering the SMG meta.

The gun showed up in the "Coming Soon" section days ago to preview the emergence of another SMG, this time the gun coming with no vaulting of any other weapons. Modeled after the P90, the Compact SMG holds a ton of ammo and can be found in two different variants.

Epic Games' patch notes for the gun breaks down what the new weapon does, but evidence from players who are already using it shows that it's more powerful than can be interpreted from just reading the patch notes.

• Compact SMG added.
  • Available in Epic and Legendary variants.
    • 23-24 base damage.
  • Uses Light Ammo.
  • 50 round capacity.
  • Can be found from floor loot, chests, Supply Drops, and Vending Machines.

The video above from ThesaurusPG comes not long after the release of Fortnite's Patch v5.10 and shows what the Compact SMG can do. With how much ammo it holds and how quickly it spits that ammo back out at opponents, anyone with a Compact SMG can burn through others' buildings quicker than the structures can be raised. The opening of the video shows how it can bow through builds with similar instances of destruction shown throughout.

Another example of the Compact SMG's strength comes from 100 Thieves Kenith who used the weapon in a recent stream to earn himself a Victory Royale. Not only can the weapon tear through buildings, it can also be used a distance that people might not expect from an SMG. From a decent distance away, Kenith tears down three in-progress brick walls and then moves on to eliminating the second-to-last opponent without ever having to reload. You'll notice that he's got two Compact SMGs in his inventory, both of them Legendary, just in case one runs out. He ends up switching to that second one to get the final kill as he destroys even more structures with absolutely no loss of accuracy thinks to a negligible amount of recoil on the weapon that allows for pinpoint accuracy.

The Compact SMG is now littered throughout the Fortnite Battle Royale map, so you've got a chance yourself to do the same thing as these two if you find one. With building materials also getting nerfed in the patch notes, weapons like the Compact SMG make it look like the SMG meta is here to stay for at least a bit longer.