Major Fortnite Update Now Live: Lunar New Year Items, New Characters, and More

Valentine’s Day may be over, but that’s not going to stop the team over at Epic Games from showing their players some love in the world of Fortnite. The latest update for the wildly popular online title is now live and it’s basically the gift that keeps on giving.

Both Save the World and Battle Royale have tons of goodies in store, including impulse grenades, new characters, loot-filled Lunar New Year shrines, and much more. Here’s what the team had to say about what’s new in the world of Fortnite:

“Valentine’s day is a time for love, loot and llamas! Patch v.2.5.0 introduces a new grenade, Shrines, weapon balance and bug fixes drop into Battle Royale. Save the World introduces Spring it On!, adding a new Valentine’s Questline, Lunar New Year Heroes and … Dragon Weapons!?

Impulse Grenade (Battle Royale)
Who’s there? You won’t have to knock twice with this grenade.

Shrines (Battle Royale)
Search for treasure in new, thematic Shrines hidden across the map.

Lunar New Year Heroes (Save the World)
New year, new gear! Harness the power of four Lunar New Year heroes.

Dragon Weapons (Save the World)
Celebrate the New Year in style and fight fire with fire.

General

• Enabled dynamic resolution and high quality temporal upsampling on PS4 and Xbox One.
  • Dynamic resolution gives more consistent framerate during heavy combat and increases visual fidelity when load on the GPU is lighter.
  • Full 4K Resolution now supported on Xbox One X.
• Added a key binding for “Toggle Pickaxe” on PC.
• PC + Mac Social Panel has been expanded to make browsing long lists of friends easier.
• Added distinctive sound variations when starting to build with Wood/Stone/Metal.
• Fixed multiple scenarios where connectivity errors would block login.
• Improved XMPP connection recovery on console.
• Optimized XMPP payloads.
• Removed extra queries when returning from match.
• Removed redundant store queries.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a problem with empty progress bars incorrectly showing as full bars on Mac.
• Fixed Discord game invites and rich presence information.

PS4 Specific

• In continued partnership with SIE, we have been able to resolve the issue that occurred for some Fortnite players in which patches took longer to download than they should. If you experience a recurrence of this issue, please reach out to Epic Customer Service and we will address appropriately.

Battle Royale

Weapon + Items

• Impulse Grenade added.
  
  • Blue rarity.
  • Found in Treasure Chests and Supply Drops only.
• The Scoped Assault Rifle is now perfectly accurate while scoped.
• Scoped Assault Rifle headshot damage decreased from 250% to 200%.
• Revolver now uses Medium ammo.
• Crossbow drop chance decreased by 20%.
• Minigun drop chance decreased by 12.5%.
• Chug Jug drop chance decreased by 15%.
• The White/Green/Blue SMG is rotating out and heading into the vault.
• Tactical Submachine Gun
  
  • Magazine size increased from 30 to 35.
  • Firing rate increased from 10 to 13.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Sniper Rifles occasionally not registering hits when aiming downward with high network latency.
• Fixed an issue with projectiles failing to hit nearby players when hitting another target.
• Fixed an issue allowing players to fire around walls with the Crossbow and Minigun if they stood very close to the edge of the wall.
• The reload-failed messages will no longer display on weapons that do not have a clip to reload (i.e. – Minigun).
• Removed per-bullet rounding on shotgun damage calculation.
  
  • Damage was rounded down to the nearest whole number for each individual pellet.
  • Instead, all projectiles will be added together before rounding.
• Fixed an issue which caused the Minigun’s barrel to continue to glow after use.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue which prevented players from using the first weapon picked up on consoles.
• Fixed an issue where under certain network conditions, players could be damaged by bullets passing through structures built at the last second.
  • These shots will now hit the structure instead of the player.
• Fixed an issue which allowed shots to pass through doors right after they were closed.
• Fixed an issue which allowed players to pick-up an extra weapon/consumable while holding a trap.
  • This issue was also caused players to drop full stacks of resources and preventing them from harvesting that resource for the rest of the match.
• Fixed shield hit effects playing when taking falling damage.
• Fixed supply drops hovering mid-air if the object beneath them was destroyed.
• Fixed a possible crash that could occur while firing weapons before boarding the Battle Bus.

World

• The Soccer Stadium and other buildings should now load properly.
• Fixed an issue which caused treasure chests to be empty in rare cases.
• Fixed an ammo crate in Lonely Lodge that didn’t spawn ammo.

Performance

• Optimized performance of player animations to improve overall frame rate.
• Optimized dust cloud and shield effects on low settings for better performance.
• Eliminated various hitches caused by certain skins and items being loaded at unexpected times.
• Character models, weapons and environment assets now utilize a Level of Detail system to improve performance.
• Improved smoothness of level streaming by loading content on a background thread.
• Major tweaks to FX settings, targeting Medium to Low specifications.

UI

• Enabled “Net Stats” option for PS4. This feature shows your ping time to Epic’s servers and overall bandwidth usage while playing.
  • This option can be found in the HUD tab under Game Settings.
• Added an icon to the HUD that indicates which button is used to open the map.
• Added the total elapsed time to the Matchmaking UI.
• The ammo widget above the player’s health bar now displays the count for any selected utility item.
• The keybinding widget in the HUD no longer shows “Not Bound”.
• Added the ability to let players scale the HUD.
  • Known Issue – This does not affect the HUD when spectating after death

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where PS4 players were not getting credit for playing with friends.

Audio

• Improved footstep audio by adding separate above and below step sounds for Wood, Stone, and Metal materials.
• Moved volume attenuation to be based off player location, rather than from the camera.
• Players can now better hear their surroundings while building.
  • Lowered the audio levels of initially placing a structure.
• Added new Wood, Stone and Metal sound variations when placing structures.
• Added a sound that plays when the Crossbow is ready to fire again.
• Lowered teammate footstep volume slightly.
• Lowered the volume of the Sniper impact sound.
• Lowered the volume of emote music when in the pre-game phase.

• Fixed an issue which prevented other players from hearing the Minigun’s spin up sound.
• Fixed some audio panning issues when equipping the Minigun.

Art/Animateion

• Improved visual FX when moving through deep water

Known Issues

• Weapon crosshairs will disappear sometimes after using a scoped weapon.
• Weapons will sometimes appear to be loaded, but cannot be fired.
• In rare cases, an item dropped by an eliminated player cannot be picked up by other players.

Save the World

Spring it On! Event

• New quests will be introduced throughout the duration of the event! Spring It On! begins with a tale of love in a storm-ridden world, with the usual Fortnite twist…
• Lunar New Year Heroes added, featuring 4 new kits!
• Dragon weapons added
• Quest Rewards (Sneak Peak):
  • Love Trooper Jonesy, Legendary Soldier
  • Choice of three Legendary Dragon Ranged Weapon
  • New Legendary Melee Defender
  • Firecracker Tickets
  • V-Bucks
  • Spring It On! Gold
  • Awarded for completing a repeatable Quest
• Firecracker Tickets can be earned by using the new Opt-In Difficulty feature (detailed below). They’ll be awarded each time you complete a mission at increased difficulty.
  • Used to purchase Spring Llamas from the Loot tab.
• Updated Loot Llamas to award Firecracker Tickets for the duration of the event.
• Spring Llama is available in the Loot tab and costs 1000 Firecracker Tickets to purchase.
  • Each Llama will contain a Lunar New Years Hero, or a Dragon weapon.
• Each stack of 1000 Storm Event Tickets has been exchanged for Storm Llamas.
• Up to 3000 Seasonal Gold will be converted 3 to 1 into Firecracker Tickets, and any additional gold beyond that is lost. Spend any additional leftover event gold before the update! Spring It On! Gold is also seasonal and will be replaced when a new season begins.
• Mutant Storm and Miniboss Mission Alerts are not tied to this event. Both have returned to their lower “passive” levels of activity, and neither awards event tickets.
  • Up to 3 Mutant Storms in Stonewood, 10 in other locations. | Quota: 4 per day
  • Up to 3 Miniboss Alerts in Stonewood, 6 in other locations. | Quota: 3 per day
• New, Spring it On!-themed items will appear in the store throughout the event.
  • Event store Items will appear, and remain available for purchase until the end of Spring It On!.
  • Weekly store items will only be available for the week in which they appear.

Universal Inventory

*NOTE: This feature will be available on Monday, February 19 due to in-progress testing.

• You can now prepare your inventory in the Armory before loading into the world.
• Use the Backpack screen to craft, equip, and recycle world items.
• Use the Storage screen to transfer items between backpack and Storm Shield storage.
  • These screens are available in an inspect-only version when connecting to a game session.

New Opt-in Difficulty

• A new type of BluGlo Pylon can be found throughout the world, allowing the difficulty of most mission types to be increased up to 5x.
  • Each time it’s used, the number of enemies increases significantly, giving a small bump to their health + damage output.
• Each time the game’s difficulty is increased, additional Seasonal Gold is awarded upon completion of the primary mission.
• During the Spring It On! event, increasing the mission’s difficulty at least once awards a number of Firecracker Tickets, starting at 40 tickets in lower Stonewood, and topping out at 94 tickets at the end of Twine Peaks.

Rarity Evolution

• The costs of Rarity Evolution have been reworked. The cost to increase the rarity of a Hero now costs more Training Manuals and evolution materials (Drops of Rain, Eye of the Storm, etc) depending on the star level of the Hero.
  • A partially-complete version of this change was released early in v.2.4.2 and had higher-than-intended costs for evolving 3,4 and 5-Star Heroes. These costs have been corrected in this patch.
• When 2-Star or higher Schematics, Heroes, Survivors, Survivor Leads and Defenders are recycled they will now refund all evolution materials spent evolving the item.
  • This change was made because we wanted players to be able to level up and test out new heroes, weapons, and traps without the risk of losing valuable evolution materials.

Heroes

• Introducing Lunar New Years heroes, featuring four new kits:
  • Berserker – A fearless Soldier who rushes into combat at close range with War Cry and Shockwave.
  • Thunderstrike – A Ninja who focuses on stunning nearby foes, and exploiting that state to deal increased damage.
  • Riot Control – Constructor focused on controlling the battlefield with DECOY, and wiping out packs of enemies with Plasma Pulse.
  • Flash – An elusive Outlander who uses Phase Shift to stun and escape from groups of enemies.
• Plasma Pulse
  • Redesigned to no longer bounce when placed.
  • Rate of fire increased from 2 pulses/second at 8 pulses/second.
  • Base damage has been reduced from 80 to 14.
• Goin’ Commando’s minigun is now flagged as a Ranged Weapon, causing it to benefit from Debilitating Shots and various other Soldier perks.
• Outlander’s Phase Shift will no longer interrupt most actions when activated, allowing it to be used more fluidly during combat.
• Long Arm of The Law makes Anti Material Charge no longer stop on the first building hit.
• In The Zone ability
  • Updated the tooltip to clarify that it requires 5 hits in a row.
  • Increased the reset timer between hits to 5 seconds from 3 seconds.
• Hearty Strikes base heal amount decreased from 12 to 10.
• [Rework] Firewall Perk
  • Melee attacks against the Constructor’s shield trigger an energy pulse dealing Energy Damage and knocking back nearby enemies in a 0.5 tile radius (16 Second Cooldown).
• [Rework] Firewall Tactical Bonus
  • Melee attacks against the Primary Hero’s shield triggers an energy pulse dealing Energy Damage and knocking back nearby enemies in a 0.5 tile radius (48 Second Cooldown).
• [Rework] Flak Vest Perk
  • Reduces damage taken by 60%.
    • Reduction drops by 15% each time the Soldier is hit. Regain 15% every 10 seconds if reduction is lower than 60%.
• [Rework] Structural strike has been reworked: When Anti Material Charge hits a building it will refund some of its energy cost and have a reduced cooldown.
• [Rework] Survivalist Perk/Tactical Bonus
  • Killing an enemy with an ability or weapon recovers 3 base health/second (scaling with Hero level and Tech) over 3 seconds. Additional kills reset the healing duration. Will not activate on full health.
• [Rework] Soldier Support Specialist
  • ‘There Are Many Like It…’ Weapon lifespan increase reduced to 80% while War Cry is active.
  • ‘There Are Many Like It…’ now unlocks at level 30 (up from level 18).
  • Added ‘Practiced in Combat’ perk at level 18.
  • Removed ‘Blitz’ from level 30 (replaced it with ‘There Are Many Like It…’)

Bug Fixes

• Damage of Tactical Perk ‘China Shop’ now properly increases with Hero level.
• Fixed an issue causing Constructor and Machinist Harper to have the Legendary stats at all rarities.
• Fixed issue where Blitzen Base Kyle Hearty Blows did not specify that its activation required a Hardware melee weapon.
• Updated tooltips for TEDDY and Shocktower abilities to explain that each ability adds to the max Fragment Charges capacity by 1.

Weapons

• Heartbreaker Crossbow added
  • Valentines-themed Sniper Crossbow.
  • Fires bolts that pierce through enemies and deal high damage + knockback.
  • Bolts will drop slightly as they travel through the air.
  • Consumes heavy ammo.
  • Available in the Event Store for Seasonal Gold.
• Dragon Weapons are available:
  • Dragon’s Roar – Semi-auto rifle that fires piercing rounds that afflict enemies with fire damage.
  • Dragon’s Might – Shotgun that fires several explosive firecrackers.
  • Dragon’s Claw – Sniper rifle that fires small rockets that stick to targets and explode after a short delay.
  • Dragon’s Fury – Rocket that leaves an explosive cloud behind after impact.
  • Dragon’s Tooth – Medium sword that deals fire damage.
  • Dragon’s Fang – Heavy spear that deals fire damage.
  • These weapons feature several unique perks – find them all!

Gameplay

• Weapons and Hero Perks that increase damage to ‘knocked down’ enemies now function while husks are in their recovery animation.
• Reduced health, stability, and score awarded for defeating minibosses by 20%.
• Slightly reduced the number of other enemies spawned while a Miniboss is present.
• Drops of Rain and other evolution materials are now more heavily impacted by difficulty and mission reward chests. This causes an increase in drop quantity for everything except the lowest value chests.
• Added Cozy Campfire Trap Schematics to Loot Llamas.
  • Also added a slot for Cozy Campfire in the Collection Book.
• The following Quests have been moved to the Side Quests category in the Quest Journal since they are no longer Daily Quests.
  • A Little Van That Could!
  • Data Retrieval
  • Storm Chaser
• Crafted weapons now come preloaded with exactly one clip of free ammo appropriate to the weapon (This does not consider the current hero, so the Waste Not Want Not perk does not apply to the clip size).

Bug Fixes

• Twine Peaks Quest Glimmer of Hope should no longer list Retrieve the Data as an objective twice. Ride the Lightning should now be listed instead.
• Clarified the description of Life Leech Attacks Storm Zone mutation.
• Affliction can no longer deal critical hit damage.
• Fixed an issue where players could occasionally not level up after outpost tutorial.
• Fixed an issue where light swords heavy attack animation was interrupted by movement.
• Fixed players seldom being unable to collect Bluglo when near a player-made building.
• Fixed some ammo boxes being difficult to loot.

UI

• New Updates featured added.
• Fixed a case of text overrun in the Store tab.
• It is no longer possible to add to a partial stack in Storm Shield Storage when the item limit is already exceeded.
• Updated the tooltip for Survivalist tactical perk to clarify that it doesn’t stack with the Survivalist hero perk.
• Fixed weapon perk lists disappearing temporarily in particular cases.
• Fixed item level indicator not updating in certain situations.
• Updated the Grenade Generation perk tooltip to properly list 20 instead of 30 required kills.

Audio

• Added sounds to Dragon Daze Ninja ability.
• New sounds for Firewall activate and recharge.
• New sounds for Flak Vest impact and recharge.

Known Issues

• Event Side Quest “Things That Go Bang In The Night” appears on the Quest Map but is not available until the next phase of the Event.
• Event Side Quest “Things That Go Bang In The Night” appears incorrectly complete in the Quest Map upon completion of the Main Event Quest “In Your Ears”.
• Spring It On! Gold Is incorrectly named Sprint It On Gold!
• Twitch quests are currently not giving out daily missions.
• Crafting quest objectives must be completed in world zones.