When does Fortnite Season 8 start?
The new season arrives today!
Information overload
We’ve pulled together everything you need to know about the Fortnite Season 8 – from hints and tips to more general gameplay-related stuff and big announcements.
Treat this as your own personal Fortnite Season 8 ‘hub’ – we’ll be updating it daily, so you’ll always be in the know.
Take a look at the new season’s battle pass!
Some brilliant new items have been added to the battle royale map including cannons!
You can now damage enemy locations or structures by firing cannonballs, yourself or a teammate!
Brand new locations!
Plenty of new areas to check out and explore including a lavoruous mountain!
Check out the full patch notes for Season 8 v.8.00 below!
WEAPONS + ITEMS
- Pirate Cannon
- Push the Cannon into position, take aim, and fire! Alternatively, climb into the barrel and launch yourself!
- The cannon will fire cannonballs or players a great distance. Cannonballs and players can plow through a number of objects before stopping with a bang, causing damage and knockback to nearby players.
- Deals 100 Damage to enemies on a direct hit and 50 Damage to enemies within a small radius.
- Found throughout the environment.
- Vaulted
- Sneaky Snowman
- Chiller Grenade
- X-4 Stormwing
- Shopping Cart
- All Terrain Kart
- Updated Hunting Rifle Icon
- Reduced the availability of high tier Assault Rifles
- Total number of Assault Rifles available remains unchanged
- Increased chance of receiving a Common quality assault rifle from 48.56% to 56.30%
- Increased chance of receiving an Uncommon quality assault rifle from 26.83% to 28.15%
- Reduced the chance of receiving a Rare quality assault rifle from 16.17% to 10.91%
- Reduced the chance of receiving an Epic quality assault rifle from 7.02% to 3.52%
- Reduced the chance of receiving a Legendary quality assault rifle from 1.82% to 1.13%
- Total number of Assault Rifles available remains unchanged
Bug Fixes
- Supply Drops now properly appear on the map.
- If the fire button is pressed while the shotgun cooldown is still active after swapping weapons then the shotgun will automatically fire once the cooldown is over.
- Fixed Clingers causing damage through walls / floors when stuck to a player.
- Fixed players accidentally sticking Remote Explosives onto themselves after applying a Consumable Bush.
- Fixed Legendary/Epic Pump Shotgun pellet tracers and muzzle flash sometimes not replicating to other clients.
- Fixed an issue where players couldn’t use Auto-Run while using a Hoverboard with a gamepad.
- Fixed items occasionally being invisible to some players.
GAMEPLAY
- Added Lava
- Lava will deal 1 damage per touch and will cause players to bounce off the surface. Watch out!
- Added Volcanic Vents
- Volcanic Vents will boost players and vehicles into the sky in a gust of hot air!
- Party Assist Added
- Prior to a match, enable Party Assist on a Daily or Weekly challenge to complete it with the assistance of everyone in your party.
- Party members are able to provide progress to the selected challenge in addition to yourself.
- This functionality excludes “fill” players who are added into the party during matchmaking or teammates from large team modes such as Team Rumble.
- Increased Infinite Dab duration from 11 hours to 12 hours in the lobby.
- Cozy Campfire now glows while active when viewed through a Thermal Scope.
- Starting in Season 8, daily quests will be automatically claimed once they’ve been completed.
- Any Challenges that were ready to be collected will be auto completed and all rewards will be delivered. However, at this time there will be no in-game notification for you receiving these rewards.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where the Lynx Outfit would jitter very badly when playing the original Wave emote in the lobby.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to aim down sights while jumping.
- Fixed an issue where weapons picked up would sometimes be incorrectly unloaded. This would happen if a player looted a weapon dropped by a player immediately after being eliminated.
- Fixed Bush consumable not being destroyed if player takes damage from a great distance.
- Fixed aim assist to work through windows.
- Fixed an issue where players could stop themselves from getting on a Zipline by standing too far behind it and colliding into the ground as they try to enter.
- Fixed an issue where the player couldn’t pick up items dropped around the Zipline pole.
- Fixed an issue where entering a vehicle while ziplining left the fall damage immunity visual effect on the player.
- Fixed auto-pickup of items not working when first landing from skydiving.
- Weapon auto-reloading no longer cancels emotes.
- Fixed an equipped Trap being swapped after dropping a stack of items or after using the last item of a stack of consumables or explosives.
- Fixed equipped traps being dropped when using hold to swap to pick up items.
LIMITED TIME MODE: 50V50
Summary
Two teams of fifty players fight to the finish!
Mode Details
- Each team has a bus, approaching the island from opposite directions. On the map, the friendly bus has a blue outline, enemy has red.
- The map has a dotted line, which indicates the “battle lines” between the two teams. Crossing the line will make running into enemies more likely.
- Farming materials increased 25% over default.
- Chests & Ammo Crates spawn more often than usual, and carry extra ammo.
LIMITED TIME MODE: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Summary
Close quarters combat with Shotguns & Jetpacks!
Mode Details
- Players start with a Jetpack in their inventory.
- The only guns in this mode are the various types of Shotguns.
- The Storm moves in more quickly than normal mid to late game.
AUDIO
- Above/below footstep improvements.
- More distinct sound for above footsteps.
- Tuned the distance at which above/below footsteps travel to be more realistic.
- Improved footstep audio timings when the game simulation is under heavy load.
- Set Down-But-Not-Out alert sound spatialization from the location of the downed player.
- Added stereo sounds for all weapons for those carrying the weapon.
- Added foley audio feedback when crouching and ADS’ing with a weapon.
- Improved Rocket Launcher incoming audio. It now plays an additional warning layer if the rocket is coming towards you.
- Added distant perspective to the enemy glider audio tell.
- Improved damage/elimination audio feedback.
- Added a new shield break sound.
- Improved the “weak-point” hit sound when harvesting.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed in-air wind audio restarting when eliminating an enemy while they’re in mid-air.
- Fixed sniper projectiles not playing impact audio.
- Fixed “Hootenany” emote getting stuck on infinitely.
- Fixed Suppressed SMG sound effect occasionally looping continuously incorrectly.
UI
- Added the ability to access the Patch Notes website from the News Screen.
- Visual improvements made to squadmate names and indicators.
- World Marker Improvements
- World Markers are now visible in the world when placed close to you.
- Double-clicking the World Marker hotkey will place a “danger” version of that marker. World Markers placed while aiming with a weapon will also place the danger version.
- Added 2D UI indicators to the World Markers, making them easier to see through objects.
- World Markers now have an off-screen indicator and display the distance your character is from them.
- Placing a World Marker on an item will display that item’s icon and rarity.
- Placing World Markers remains on the same key for PC and console (KBM: Middle Mouse Button, Controller: D-Pad Left).
- This button can be remapped to any button you want. Let us know on our social channels what works best for you!
- Mobile also has a button that can be added to the HUD. Place this button by using the HUD Layout Tool.
- Added filter tabs to the locker for animated loading screens and pets.
- Added a card corner icon for certain types of animated cosmetics.
Bug Fixes
- Fix cases where the Bad Network Indicator would appear at the beginning of the match due to slow loading conditions.
- The Battle Pass / Battle Bundle purchase screen now shows your supported creator if one is set.
- Fixed an issue where the team elimination count was sometimes inaccurate.
- Fixed an issue where eliminations weren’t properly counting when playing in Playgrounds.
REPLAY
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where scrubbing through a replay could cause the player’s hero model to disappear in the lobby.
- Fixed issue with cosmetic styles not displaying properly during replay playback.
- Fixed elimination damage numbers being inaccurate in replays.
- Fixed weapon firing animations sometimes playing twice in replays.
MOBILE
- Added more visual feedback when buttons are pressed.
- Changed gliding/freefalling HUD visibility to be more consistent between mobile/other platforms.
- Player are now able to toggle between crouch and standing states while in build and edit modes.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bug which caused the lobby background to disappear when closing the Report Player dialog.
- Fixed an issue where trying to switch to build mode and tapping the quickbar at the same time would switch back to combat mode.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to place a trap using a mobile controller made the player animate as if they were trying to open a door several times before the trap is placed.
- Fixed players ability to un-crouch while gliding.
- Fixed action button remaining on the UI during the Battle Bus phase.
- The ‘Resources’ HUD setting now properly shows in-game after making changes on mobile devices.
- Fixed an issue where using touch to edit a structure breaks the ability to continue crosshair editing until the button is pressed again.
- Fixed an issue where dragging an item off the hotbar triggered a double click.
- Fixed an issue where pick up and zip line activation icon’s default position overlapped with the aiming icon.
- Fixed controller art sometimes missing in the Controller Setting screen.
CREATIVE
WHAT’S NEW?
Voice Chat Updates
New voice chat options have been added to Creative Island Game menu! Share a single channel while in Creative, regardless of team, then choose who you chat with when playing.
Jungle Temple Theme
Set up deadly traps or harrowing trials in your own adventure games using the new Jungle Temple Prefab.
Playgrounds Update
Renovations have been made to Playground, moving it over to Creative and allowing even more friends to join in on the fun!
ISLANDS
- You can now customize your island’s time of day!
- A new “Time of Day” option has been added to the My Island menu.
- By default, time of day will advance normally, which is shared between all islands on the server that are also set to “Default”.
- You can select a specific hour of the day, which will force your island to always be at that time.
- Selecting “Random” will automatically choose a random time of day when your island is loaded, and will stay at that time.
- Islands now load much more quickly.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where corn, various bushes, and chain link fences would prevent players from taking damage from bullets.
- Fixed an issue where Island portals would always result in players spawning in a skydive animation, forcing a player’s camera to look down even when teleporting onto land.
GAMEPLAY
- Added a new Creative Volcano Island
- Added a new Creative Hub island
- Playgrounds update
- Matchmake with 15 others (total of 16 players) into the new Playgrounds Hub to explore 4 Featured Islands. Or drop into one of five locations on the Battle Royale map to practice.
- Added new Jungle Temple Galleries
- Added Visualizer Gallery XL
- Added Starting Inventory, Chiller Grenade and alt Village Set
Bug Fixes
- Players will now be reset and Island health settings will apply upon joining an Island.
- Fixed a bug where be eliminated and entering a vehicle at the same time would cause the player to lose most controls.
Known Issue
- Your friends’ Playgrounds sessions will appear when browsing Creative servers.
CREATIVE TOOLS + PHONE
- Improved Resize mode:
- The Phone’s Resize mode now allows you to stretch and squash props along a specific direction, either Width, Height or Depth. This works the same as changing Rotation Axis while in Rotate mode.
- When Resizing props, you can now “flip” props backwards by continuing to Shrink them beyond their minimum size. This also works when a specific resize direction has been selected, and enables new possible arrangements of props!
- When the Phone is in Resize mode, you can now reset the size of the object to its default size. This works the same as resetting Rotation while in Rotate mode.
- You can now embed props inside the island terrain.
- Set your Collision mode to “Nothing” to allow props to be moved right through the terrain.
- The existing Collision “On” mode has been renamed to “Everything”, and “Off” was renamed to “Terrain Only”.
- Added new helper visuals while placing props:
- The “Snap Center” position of props is now displayed while Snap is turned on.
- While rotating props, guides now appear to show you the selected axis of rotation.
- While resizing props, guides now appear to show the selected direction the prop will grow, shrink, stretch or squash.
- These visual guides will also briefly appear when switching between Rotate, Resize or Snap modes.
- Players can now interact with objects like doors, devices and traps even while flying.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the holographic preview of certain (flipped) props appearing in the wrong location when Copy or Cut was used.
- Fixed some types of props (like Music Blocks) not landing on the ground as expected when Drops mode was enabled.
- Fixed props falling below the terrain when Drops mode was enabled in some cases.
- Fixed props moving unexpectedly when copying them with the phone if they were already resized before grabbing them.
- Fixed many objects being able to be placed faster than the turbo build speed by spamming button presses.
- Fixed up the word “Rapidly” for the Turbo build delete text.
- The phone now tries to use the visible prop to determine bounds whenever possible. Ignoring things like the barrier device, elimination zone, etc.
- Returning the rotate code to use its old pivot logic.
- The Phone now respects the Size and mirror state of every prop that is spawned from prefabs or catalogs. The move tool now takes the absolute value of the scale before setting the scale values.
- When placing props beneath the level, drops will not activate and cause them to fall even further beneath the floor. Preventing drops code from setting the new lower transform of the actors if those actor.
PREFABS
- Added 5 all new Jungle Temple Prefabs
- Great Pyramid
- Pyramid
- Courtyard
- Temple
- Shrine A
- Shrine B
- Added 4 all new Jungle Temple Galleries
- Jungle Temple Gallery
- Jungle Temple Prop Gallery
- Jungle Nature Gallery
- Jungle Temple Wall Extended Gallery
- Added Elemental Cube Gallery
- Added 5 different color Bridge and Girder Galleries
- Orange, Grey, Green, White, Blue
- Added Ring Part Gallery
- Added the Visualizer Gallery XL
- Added the Ambient Gallery Large
- Added 8 different color Obstacle Course Galleries
- White, Orange, Black, Blue, Purple, Grip Tape, Red, Green
- Added an Obstacle Course Stairs Gallery
DEVICES
- Added a Billboard
- Write and publish text to the Billboard that can easily be placed on Creative Islands.
- Added the new Pirate Cannon
- Push the Cannon into position, take aim, and fire! Alternatively, climb into the barrel and launch yourself!
- The cannon will fire cannonballs or players a great distance. Cannonballs and players can plow through a number of objects before stopping with a bang, causing damage and knockback to nearby players.
- Deals 100 Damage to enemies on a direct hit and 50 Damage to enemies within a small radius.
- Added Pinball Bumper and Flipper
- Placeholder
- Added additional options to the Barrier Device
- Base Visible In Game – Added ability to toggle the visibility of base plates.
- Turn off to hide the device base during a game.
- Block Weapons In Game – Turn off to allow weapons and projectiles to pass through the barrier.
- Base Visible In Game – Added ability to toggle the visibility of base plates.
- Speed Boost traps can be placed on vertical walls.
- Added option to hide the checkpoint device during games.
- Added option to clear the player’s inventory when they reach a checkpoint device.
- Barrier device can now be set to be all black.
- Elimination Zone renamed to Damage Zone.
- Added multiple options to Damage Zone.
- Base Visible In Game – Turn off to hide the device base during a game.
- Damage Type – Allows for immediate elimination or damage over time.
- Damage – How much damage is applied each damage over time tick.
- Damage Tickrate – How often damage over time is applied.
- Safe Team – Designate a team that won’t be affected by the Damage Volume.
- Shield Damage – Turn off to skip damaging player shields and directly attack their health total.
- Players can now customize the team a Sentry is assigned to.
- Added option to turn on/off the bonus ammo for weapons that are spawned from the item spawner.
- When off, some weapons will have very small amounts of ammo when picked up.
- Added an option for the Movement Modulator effect to last for infinite time during a match.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed issue where starting inventory device would grant duplicate items if the “Drop items when eliminated” game option is set to Off.
- Fixed challenge gallery items colliding with Hoverboard.
- Sentries will target players more reliably when they are crouching now.
TEAMS
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where pressing Apply on the Team Select dialog could cause players to change to team 1 when that was not intended.
- Fix a bug where swapping teams could result in going into the Down-But-Not-Out state instead of respawning.
- Fixed a bug where setting a Player Start to Team None would behave instead like Team All.
UI
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the Game Description screen was displaying on screen even while still restoring from a previous game.
Fortnite fans have been speculating for weeks about when the long-anticipated Driftboard would be added to the battle royale mode as another mode of transportation.
After the island was covered in its entirety by snow, this seemed like the opportune moment for EPIC to add the board to the game.
However, it has now been revealed that the board will most likely be added to the game in the next update – v7.40.
Prominent Fortnite Leaker ‘Lucas7yoshi_’ tweeted out saying: ‘lowkey expect driftboard in v7.40 ngl’.
Fortnite developers, Epic games had previously forstalled the release of the Driftboard saying:
“Unfortunately, we’ve decided to hold the release of this new vehicle to make some final quality of life changes and other polish improvements.
“We want to get you out there carving up the slopes as soon as possible.
“However, our goal is to make sure that your experiences on the Driftboard are up to our expectations.
“We still have tons of quality of life and balance improvements on the way in v7.10.”
Let’s hope we are out there cutting some shapes in the next update!
A ten-minute set from dance music provider Marshmello in Fortnite was reportedly watched in-game by over ten million people.
Respected industry insider and Game Awards organiser Geoff Keighley claims that “sources” have revealed that over 10 million players were logged into Fortnite during the concert.
The event, which happened yesterday afternoon, was unlike any other event that Fortnite has seen so far.
All weapons were disabled for the duration of the ten-minute show, which featured a seemingly-live performance from the man himself.
The game also saw gravity reduced at various points so let players bounce around to the tunes, as well as deploying the usual array of dance moves.
As well as the reported 10 million people watching in the game itself, many more were watching via Twitch and other popular streaming services.
The event happened in every Fortnite game individually, so each individual concert only had 100 viewers — but repeated 100,000 times simultaneously across the different games.
Marshmello himself described himself as “in awe”.
If you missed it, you can see the whole thing on YouTube.
Today, Fortnite features a bunch of NFL-themed shenanigans ahead of tonight’s Super Bowl between the LA Rams and New England Patriots.
The ice is thawing and the map may soon be flooded.
Theories about the new Season 8 theme are being thrown around the internet with hot new speculations coming in daily.
The arrival of dragon eggs with heartbeats has spawned a whole host of new theories and speculations around the return of to the medieval in the battle royale game.
But what are the battle pass skins going to look like?
Aquatic heaven
As with every other season of Fortnite, we tend to get a sneak peek at the theme of the next season by the skins that are released in the weeks prior.
The release of more aquatic skins, most recently the Fishstick skin, suggests that the melting of the ice and subsequent flooding of the map will result in a number of ‘water-themed’ skins.
Fishbowl backpacks, seaweed capes, submarines?! The possibilities are endless.
There is fresh speculation around Fortnite Season 8.
With snow having taken over the battle royale map and a number of themed skins being added to the game that focuses around a wintery royal theme, players have been speculating as to what the theme of Season 8 will be.
Reddit user ‘LethalSnowmeme’ came up with a theory that makes a lot of sense, especially now new areas and environmental objects have been added to the game.
LethalSnowmeme believes we will see a return to the theme of Season 2, with the Medieval making a grand return.
In Season 2 we were introduced to 4 knights, the royale knight, blue squire, red knight, and black knight. The map was also covered in snow.
Skip forward to Season 7 we have seen the addition of a giant castle on the mountain by Haunted Hills, a limited time sword that was added to the game.
LethalSnowmeme finishes his theory by pointing towards three further bits of evidence:
-
There’s a giant statue near wailing woods that’s been moving around. Back in the medieval day, moving statues had a name, it being golems.
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There are dragon eggs slowly being revealed from the thawing glacier. They may have been fossilized for a while, so that means that the other things may have been fossilized as well. And also, Ragnarok’s female variant was released 2 seasons ago with an ice dragon glider.
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The new frozen legends pack has an iced red knight along with 2 other iced skins, which helps back up my theory.
The map may be divided by the melting iceberg into different factions represented by different medieval skins.
Creating moats around key points of interest defended by dragons?
At this point, it is merely speculation, but the arrival of flying dragon mounts to the battle royale could be an exciting development.
Season 7 of Fortnite is off to a shaky start with Fortnite developer EPIC games facing legal action.
Alfonso Ribeiro who played Carlton in the hugely popular 90’s TV show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ is suing Fortnite over the use of the Dance emote in-game the ‘Fresh’ – based off the iconic Tom Jones dance routine.
The battle royale powerhouse is now worth an estimated $15 billion, so we can’t imagine they feel that threatened by the lawsuits that are sure to come piling in over the next few months.
As Fortnite is free-to-play the only way the game makes money is through the monetisation of emotes and skins, the more popular the emote the more money they make.
This has led to EPIC Games using popular already established dance moves like the floss and the Carlton and selling them in game.
Could we see the end of these emotes in Fortnite Season 8?
Players spent an average of £4million every day in the game in 2018, making it the most successful single year for any game ever, according to research firm SuperData.
The £1.9 billion total was more than rival PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds (PUBG), which made £804 million as it claimed the top spot in global revenue for “premium” games that you have to pay to play.
PUBG is free to play on mobile, which means its total revenues would have been even higher
The means the cartoony world of Fortnite‘s battle royale island raked in around three times as much money as Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, which took many years of work from thousands of developer and eight different game studios.
FIFA 18 took second place in the premium chart with £645 million behind PUBG thanks to the sales of the full game as well as the cash spent on Ultimate Team cards. FIFA 19 scraped into the top 10 as well with £323 million.
Despite being its fifth year on sale, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto also made an impact, with £461 million raked in to tighten its grip as the most successful product in entertainment history.
To give Fortnite‘s £1.9 billion revenue context, it means that Fortnite has made more money in a single year than any movie in history bar one, as it just failed to beat Avatar’s £2.2bn global box office revenue.
Free-to-play games dominated the total revenue charts, though, with the top 10 all earning more than every premium title except PUBG.
Honour of Kings, Dungeon Fighter Online and QQSpeed — all massively popular in China — had revenues of £1.6bn, £1.17bn and £1.09bn respectively.
League Of Legends, which has a massively popular competitive scene with millions in prize money up for grabs, also earned around £1.09bn in 2019.
Popular Western mobile titles also cracked the top 10, with Pokémon Go making £860m and Candy Crush Saga £780m.