Fortnite Patch Includes Xbox-Exclusive Heroes and Battle Royale Changes

The next update for Fortnite includes more than a few changes to the Battle Royal and Save the World game modes along with four new Xbox-exclusive heroes.

In order to get the new Save the World heroes that are exclusive to the Xbox One, all you have to do is meet certain requirements to gain access to the characters. If you’ve purchased a Founders Pack on the Xbox One previously, simply complete the Loot Llamas quest and you’ll receive the characters. If you’ve already beaten that quest, you’ll have the heroes when you log in.

Looking ahead to The Game Awards, the devs also hinted at a new game mode that’ll be revealed during the show. Fortnite is already up for the Best Multiplayer game of the year, but the reveal of the new limited-time mode should make the event even better for Epic Games.

But as for the Battle Royale game mode that’s kept many players busy, a few aim assist and weapon changes are sprinkled in among the tons of audio and visual improvements. Below are the main changes coming to Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, but you can visit Epic Games’ site to see all the bugfixes and Save the World changes in full.

Gameplay

• Decreased chance of getting Bandages from Treasure Chests and Supply Drops by 35%.
• Reduced aim assist on controllers.
• This should make it easier to lead targets with Sniper Rifles.
• The updated aim assist system allows us to iterate easily. Let us know how you think we can improve aim assist.

Weapons

• Removed tracers from the silenced SMG.
• Sniper Rifles no longer reload while in scoped view.

Audio

• Reduced volume for ambient trap sounds, and made them less frequent.
• Added a new warning sound that activates when a player approaches a ceiling or wall trap.
• Teammate footsteps now sound quieter than enemies.
• If you are spectating a player, their footsteps are quieter.
• Added different footstep sounds for wood, stone, metal, and dirt/grass surfaces.
• It’s now easier to hear footsteps through walls.
• Added “terminal velocity” wind sound when falling from large heights, and impact/pain sounds for when taking damage from falling.
• Increased the audio range for the sniper gunshot from 180m to 250m.
• Reduced gunshot sound volume for tactical shotguns. (Does not affect audio range)
• Reduced volume of revolver equip/reload/fire sounds.
• New sounds for Medkit, Shield Potion, and Slurp Juice consumables.
• It is now easier to hear the sound of an another player gliding towards you after using a Launch Pad.
• All audio for the dance emote is now adjusted with the SFX slider instead of Music.
• Wind volume reacts more dynamically while skydiving or using a glider/umbrella.
• Removed low-frequency content in the “ticking clock” sound that plays prior to the storm eye shrinking.
• These frequencies could have previously been mistaken for footsteps while running.

Performance

• Improved general framerate when multiple characters are nearby.
• Improved server performance by reducing the number of redundant movement events sent from clients.
• Improved Xbox One rendering by reducing CPU stalls.
• Improved performance when rendering lighting and shadows.
• Improved performance when rendering bushes and other clutter objects.
• Improved game thread performance by converting more game logic BPs to C++.
• Improved UI performance.
• Improved PhysX performance.
• Improved CPU performance on Xbox One and Windows by tweaking thread priorities.
• Improved performance of particle systems by adding batching.
• Improved performance of animation trail effects and particles.
• Improved performance when using the glider.
• Optimized particles associated with players/weapons.
• Optimized audio for the safe zone indicator.
• Tweaked how often animations update and optimized many other animation systems.
• Reduced general hitching by optimizing garbage collection of objects loaded within memory.
• Reduced network bandwidth used when spawning players in a squad match.
• Fixed a server performance issue caused by building actors that moved every frame.
• Fixed a server performance issue where rubber banding could be caused when jumping out of the Battle Bus.
• Fixed various hitches that could occur during gameplay.

UI

• You can now view your personal stats and XP gained at the end of a match or when spectating.
• You can now choose to abandon one of your Daily Challenges each day.
• Added “Net Debug Stats” panel to the Battle Royale UI.
• This can be enabled by going to Settings > Game > HUD > Net Debug Stats
• This setting displays ping, bandwidth, packets per second, and packet loss for both uploading and downloading.
• If you haven’t received a packet from the server in more than 1 second, the UI will also display a “Connection Lost” warning.
• Currently this is only available on Windows and Mac platforms, but we hope to enable it on consoles in a future update!
• Added the option to send a friend invite to squadmates on the Spectator and Victory screens (PC/Mac only.)
• Added some look-and-feel polish to the matchmaking buttons.
• Added a warning message that activates when players attempt to disguise themselves as a bush while already disguised.
• Replaced the 60-second warm up timer with “Waiting for Players”
• Increased the size of the large map so it takes up more screen space when open.
• The revive timer now shows the revive progress for both keyboard and controller players