Fortnite Season 4 Begins Today With Altered Map, New Battle Pass, and More

Fans have been waiting for nearly a whole month to find out what would happen when Fortnite began its newest season. Theories and rumors have run wild with the idea that Tilted Towers would be destroyed, aliens would come, or that nothing would happen at all. Today they get their answers, as Season 4 of Fortnite is finally out, and as it turns out, something has landed.

As you can tell from the brief trailer above, the comet that Epic Games has been teasing all month was no joke, it’s just that the location we all thought would be destroyed was left intact. Instead, the massive comet has opened up a new area of the map called Dusty Divot, which is a crater-sized hole right next to (a now partially destroyed) Dusty Depot. On that area of the map, players can find crystals from the comet that, when consumed, give them less fall damage and the ability to jump a bit higher and longer for a short period of time.

Of course, the inclusion of a new season of Fortnite means the inclusion of a new Battle Pass, and as is custom, a brand new Battle Pass for Season 4 is available, giving players a new 100 tiers of rewards, including new cosmetic items, emotes, and for the first time, Sprays. For a full breakdown of the update in the games Battle Royale mode, check out below for the full patch notes included in Season 4:

GAMEPLAY

• Structures on the starting island can now be destroyed. Not the Battle Bus, though.
• Headshots are now prioritized when other body parts are in the way.
  • Incoming headshots (from above or straight on) will no longer be blocked by your character’s other body parts.
  • For example, a shot that hits your target’s hand will be able to penetrate through and hit their head if your aim was on point. You’ll be credited headshot damage instead of normal damage.
  • Headshots from below that are blocked by a body part (legs, torso, hands, shoulders, arms) will do normal damage, except for impacts very close to your character’s head.
  • This change affects all weapons, except for the Rocket Launcher and Grenade Launcher.
• Slightly reduced the hitbox size of player hands.
• Damage numbers are now visible when spectating a player.
• Knocking a player off the island will award elimination credit like normal fall damage.
• Fall distance is now shown in the elimination feed when a player is forced to fall by an opponent.
• On the starting island, you can now see other players (and player-created structures) about three times further away than before.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would cause player built structures to appear intact for a few seconds after eliminating an enemy and destroying the structure at the same time.
  • This caused players to “phase through” the structure.
• Fixed cases where pickups moved erratically when sliding down slopes.
• Fixed an issue where destroying a building from under an enemy wouldn’t award kill credit.
• Fixed an issue where swinging the pickaxe could cause movement stuttering.
• Fixed an issue where some pre-placed wooden archways could not be destroyed by player built structures.
• Fixed an issue that made the Battle Bus appear to quickly fly off the map after jumping from it.
• Fixed an issue that would pause a downed players health bar if their reviver disconnected while reviving them.

UI

• You can now mark cosmetic items as favorites in the Locker.
• ‘Random’ option added to each cosmetic equipment slot in the Locker.
  • This will randomly choose between items you’ve marked as favorites each match (or from all owned items if nothing is marked as a favorite).
• You are no longer limited to just the 6 slots on your emote wheel for Sprays and Emotes and can now use any of the ones you own in a match!
  • The Locker slots act as a page of presets, but you can cycle through to any emotes marked as a favorite and then all emotes, sorted by type (PS4: L1/R1; XB1: LB/RB; PC: Mouse Wheel; Mobile:Buttons added next to radial menu).
• Added new “Locker Emote Slot” button bindings, which allow you to immediately trigger any of your 6 Emote or Spray presets.
• While Auto Run is active, an icon is now displayed.
• Improved the look and feel of the Game options tab.
• Slightly decreased the size of the arrow over players heads when they are close to you.
• The fourth and fifth weapon slots will now default to keys 5 and 6 instead of Z and X when using the “Reset to Defaults” option.
• The 4:3 aspect ratio is now supported.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the compass showed ‘360’ when it should have been ‘359’.
• Fixed an issue where players could get stuck on the Inventory screen when opening and closing it very quickly multiple times in a row.
• Fixed an issue where the “Show Net Stats” HUD option would be reset to off after restarting the game.
• Fixed an issue that caused consumable timers to not display when using a consumable immediately after canceling one.
• Fixed a spelling error in the description for Tomatohead.
• The Squad Comms wheel can now be closed with circle on PS4 controllers, and B on Xbox controllers.
• Weapon slot keybinding options are no longer called “Ability Slots” in the input menu.

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• The Crossbow has been vaulted.
• Rocket Launcher aim reticle is now a fixed size regardless of player movement.
• Hit markers are now displayed when looking through a scope.
• Increased pickaxe damage against Supply Llamas, now dealing 50 damage per hit.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where a weapon could have no ammo when dropping it immediately after picking it up.
• Improved pickaxe swing responsiveness when switching from a weapon to the pickaxe and immediately holding the swing button.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Hunting Rifles from auto reloading if it was fired immediately after a reload.
• Fixed an issue that allowed grenades to be thrown in rapid succession while sprinting.
• Fixed an issue where aiming a grenade throw and then switching to build mode wouldn’t cancel the throw.
• Fixed an issue with the Builder Pro configuration that caused the players weapon to fire while trying to build in some cases.
• Clingers will now properly cling to falling Supply Drops.

REPLAY SYSTEM

• Added an in-game player list to Replays.
• Leaving a Replay will now take you back to the Replay browser.
• Renaming Replays is now limited to 32 characters.
• Increased the size of name column in Replay browser.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the alignment of the eliminations column in Replay browser.
• Fixed an issue where Replay Browser list couldn’t be navigated with gamepad after cancelling renaming a replay.

ART + ANIMATION

• Hunting Rifle mesh and animations have been updated.
• Shotguns, Revolver, Hand Cannon, and Rocket Launcher have had their equip animations improved – they should now match the equip time.
  • Their equip timing remains the same.
• The dust cloud that appears on player landings now shows for all players.
• Storm wind now affects trees within the storm.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Supply Llama not playing destruction effects when killed by projectiles.
• Fixed an issue that caused Back Bling to display improperly after using a Launch Pad.
• Players can now emote while rocket riding.

AUDIO

• Adjusted timing on the equip sounds for all Shotguns. The cocking sound will now occur right before the weapon is able to fire.
• Improved volume difference between soft and hard landing sounds.
  • Players falling from 1 or more stories will land with a louder audio cue.
• Added unique impact sounds when hitting shrubs, bushes and cornstalks.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused footstep audio to play when players were mid-air after jumping.
• Fixed an issue where the Minigun equip sound would persist after quickly switching away from it.
• The map marker sound no longer plays when removing a marker.

PERFORMANCE

• Improved smoothness of other players movement on the starting island by increasing network update rates.
• Made significant performance improvements when many players are on-screen by reducing the impact of character parts.
• Optimized hitches that occur when garbage collecting objects.
• Fixed hitches that could happen in games where lots of building occurred.
• Optimized Level-of-Detail (LOD) for buildings in Shifty Shafts and Flush Factory.
• Optimized Input/Output (IO) performance on Consoles to reduce hitches and load times.

MOBILE

• Quickbar now supports drag and drop for dropping and moving inventory items.
• Holding the movement stick in a direction for 3-seconds now enables an option to turn on auto run.
• Adding ‘Repair Building’ button.
• Added ‘Cycle Weapon’ button.
• Made improvements to prevent finger creep.
• Slightly decreased aim assist strength at further distances to allow for easier fine tuning when aiming.
• Grenade indicators are now displayed when grenades are equipped.
• Made improvements to low-end mobile performance by dynamically scaling background draw distances with player height.
• Reduced object draw distance for medium/lower-end iOS devices.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the view pop caused by the swiping inertia when lifting your finger off the screen.
• Fixed bugs that were causing some erroneous misfires and input errors.

Fortnite is available now.

[via Epic Games]

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