Fortnite Season 3 Update Live, Major Improvements and Additions Detailed

Fortnite Battle Royale Season 3 is finally upon us! Update 3.0 went live very early this morning, and servers went down shortly thereafter to prepare all of the changes and additions. Everything is back online now, so the next time you boot up Fortnite, you should be playing the latest version.

So what’s new in Season 3? We’re so glad you asked, because there is so much new stuff to look forward to! You can find the full patch notes right here, but we wanted to highlight the most important and the most exciting changes for you right away to save you some time. We’ll kick things off with the biggest changes coming to Battle Royale since that’s what most of you guys are playing, and then we’ll move on to some of the Save the World changes and additions.

Feel free to check out the brief Season 3 trailer above, and then keep scrolling to see the most exciting and significant changes in Season 3!

60 FPS Mode and Performance Improvements on All Consoles

With this new update, EPIC has done some epic work and made Fortnite run at 60 FPS on all platforms. No matter what console you’re playing on, when you boot up Fortnite, the game should default to this new 60 FPS mode. If you’d rather have some additional detail and take a hit to frame rate (why on earth would you do that?!), you’re welcome to toggle this off in the options. From the patch notes:

“Experience Fortnite like never before. PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One X now support 60 FPS mode, hand-tuned for each console to provide an extra-smooth gaming experience while maintaining visual fidelity.”

The frame rate isn’t the only thing that got a huge boost. EPIC made some sweeping improvements to the way you guys build as well! Check it out.

Building Improvements

• Players can now build structures just about anywhere, even through trees, rocks and cars.
  • This allows you more freedom when building (no more pesky trees stopping your ramps).
  • Structural support still works the same way — only terrain or other buildings will support your built structures, not objects you build through.
• If you run out of materials while building, you’ll now automatically switch to the next material with available resources.
  • You can turn this feature off with the “Auto Material Change” option in the Game Settings menu.
• You can now continuously place the selected building piece by holding down the Primary Fire button.
  • You can turn this feature off with the “Turbo Building” option in the Game Settings menu.
• Battle Royale: Switching between building pieces is now much smoother, especially using console controls or under non-ideal network conditions.

New Weapons, Items, and Weapon Changes

• Hand Cannon added.

  • Fires Heavy ammo.

  • Epic and Legendary rarity.

  • Found in Floor Loot, Treasure Chests and Supply Drops.

• Pump Shotgun behavior has been addressed. Firing the Pump Shotgun and quickly switching weapons will now require you to pump the Shotgun before the next shot.

  • We will be monitoring any fallout from this and continuing to iterate on how this works throughout the next patches.

• Grenades no longer have the ability to Crit.

• Removed the Valentine’s Day skin from the Crossbow.

• Adjusted Pistol drop chances in floor loot:

  • Increased Uncommon Pistol by 25%.

  • Increased Rare Pistol by 100%.

  • Decreased Epic Suppressed Pistol by 33%.

  • Decreased Legendary Suppressed Pistol by 20%.

Is that John Wick?!

EPIC also added a few brand new outfits to the game, but by far the most curious is this new John Wick style assassin. We saw this teased in an image yesterday, and now we know that this getup is called “The Reaper,” and will come as part of the “hired gun” set.

The description reads, “Vengeance for hire.” Pretty bland and open, yeah? When you guys get a closer look at the skin, too, you’ll realize that it’s very much “inspired” by John Wick, but definitely has some major differences. I guess EPIC didn’t want to spark a lawsuit, and we don’t blame them. It’s still an incredible addition, though, and looks really cool!

Save the World Gameplay Changes

• Hoverboard added.

  • Hoverboards are granted by a new tutorial questline, available after Stonewood Homebase Storm Shield Defense 5 has been completed.

  • Cruise across the map at high speed!

  • Hoverboards take 3 seconds to summon, but consume no Energy while in use.

  • Taking damage while on your Hoverboard will knock you off. Avoid husks!

• The Bald Eagle Hand Cannon is now available in the Weekly Store.

  • This is the highest-damage hand cannon yet!

  • Accurate and effective at short to mid-range.

• Spring It On! event chapter, “Luck Explosion” unlocks!

  • Ring in the Lunar New Year with explosive new quests and activities.

  • Get your Dragon Weapon of choice as the quest line reward.

• The Cozy Campfire no longer rewards the full Utility score every time it heals a player, instead spreading its total reward out over its lifespan.

• Plankhattan Project quest now only requires a single fully completed Siphon to succeed instead of 3. Players still must complete all three defense stages on the Siphon.

• Adjusted the cost of all BluGlo Pylons.

• Increased Wood/Stone/Metal harvesting rates. The exact amount varies by object, but is approximately 10-20% higher.

• Frontend crafting within Universal Inventory feature will be added.

• Reduced appearance rate of Ranged, Melee and Weapon Llamas by 20%.