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.

GAMEPLAY

• Loot Drops!
  • When enemies are killed they have a chance to drop loot on the ground.
    • This chance is increased for patrolling enemies and the packs of enemies found scattered throughout the world.
  • Enemies can drop building materials, crafting ingredients, and ammunition.
  • Larger/tougher enemies drop more items and better crafting ingredients.
    • The tier of crafting ingredients increases with Mission Difficulty, as does the chance of finding rare crafting ingredients like Active Powercells.
  • Mini-Bosses drop a new item type called a Cache.
    • Schematic Caches come in three rarities (Rare, Epic, Legendary) and contain a single ranged or melee weapon schematic. The likelihood of getting an Epic or Legendary cache increases at higher mission difficulties.
    • Evolution Material Caches contain storm evolution materials (Pure Drop of Rain, Storm Shard, etc). These scale up with the difficulty of the mission.
    • A Mini-Boss will drop one cache (of the same type) for every player who participated in the elimination (dealt damage to the boss, or was close to it when it was eliminated).
  • Certain high-rarity treasure chests found in the world can also drop Caches.
  • Caches are opened at the end of the mission.
• Survivor health has been increased by 40% to allow more time for players to rescue them from tough situations.
• The Teleporter Gadget has been refactored in an effort to improve its fun and usability!
• New default behavior:
  • The base range of the Teleporter has been increased to 20 tiles.
  • Teleporter now has no cooldown when activated!
  • In order to accommodate the usability of no cooldown, the Teleporter no longer teleports Enemies.
  • Teleporter now will not activate if it’s in a location that it could not normally be placed on. You’ll still be able to move it, however.
  • Teleporter now has an “arm” time when it’s placed or moved before it becomes active. The default arm time is 5.5 seconds.
  • Teleporter now has a default “pick up” use time of 2.5 seconds.
• As part of the improvements to Teleporter, we’ve adjusted the upgrades it has!
  • Upgrade 1 now allows the Teleporter to transport friendly projectiles!
    • Projectiles will exit from the Teleporter based on the direction you set when you place it.
    • Yes, this means you can throw rockets and grenades through it – try things out!
  • Upgrade 2 now reduces the pickup time of the Teleporter to .5 seconds.
  • Upgrade 3 now reduces the arm time of the Teleporter when it is placed to 1.5 seconds.
  • Upgrade 4 now increases the range of the Teleporter by 10 tiles.
  • Upgrade 5 now allows Enemy projectiles to go through the Teleporter!
    • This means Husk Bones, and Lobber Grenades, and others – try a Teleporter on roofs you want to defend!
• Hover Bot Turret has been improved as well:
  • New default behavior
    • Recharge time reduced from 240 seconds to 150 seconds.
    • Default duration reduced to 20 seconds.
    • No longer fires projectiles – now shoots hitscan shots.
    • Increased default ‘Rate of Fire’ from 1.33 shots per second to 6 shots per second.
    • Base damage reduced from 20 to 15.
  • Upgrades have been adjusted:
    • Duration increase remains +10 seconds, which makes the final duration 30 seconds.
    • We corrected an issue with the range upgrade which was preventing it from working properly. The default range is still 4 tiles, but is increased to 8 with this upgrade.
    • The ‘Rate of Fire’ Upgrade now increases the rate of fire to 10 shots per second.
• The default action of keyboard button ‘B’ is now Emote, with keyboard button ‘V’ bound to bring up Team Chat. You can now cycle between Team Chat, Emotes, and Notes, regardless of which button you pushed to summon the picker.
  • (PS4: L1/R1, XB1: LB/RB, PC: Mouse Wheel)

Bug Fixes

• Corrected an issue which was causing Corn to be unsearchable. It is once again searchable, and will drop the Bacon you crave 🥓.
• Corrected an issue which prevented C4 from being thrown during Sprint. It will now activate and interrupt Sprint as expected.
• Corrected an issue which was preventing the Helium Shotgun projectiles from moving properly through all parts of the world.

HEROES

• [New] Mythic Solder “Raven” – Subclass: Nevermore
  • Description – Shadowy figure who screeches deafening War Cries before eliminating prey with his dual wielded pistols.
  • New Ability
    • Lefty and Righty – Deploy dual pistols and light up your enemies!
  • New Perks
    • ‘Dual Debilitation’ – Lefty and Righty applies Debilitating Shots.
    • ‘Where’s Lefty’ – Eliminating enemies with pistols reduces the cooldown of Lefty and Righty by 1 second.
    • ‘Bang and Pow’ – Dealing damage with Lefty and Righty causes an explosion that deals Energy Damage in a .5 tile radius.
  • New Tactical Perk
    • ‘Explosive Rounds’ – Tactical variant of the Explosive Rounds Perk.
• [New] 8 “Shadow Ops” Heroes
  • Soldier – New Subclass: Double Agent featuring New Characters Vaughn and Evelynn
    • Description – Soldier that wields dual pistol with ease, creating an explosive outcome.
    • Utilizes the newly added ability and associated perks:
      • ‘Lefty and Righty’
      • ‘Dual Debilitation’
      • ‘Where’s Lefty’
      • ‘Bang and Pow’
    • New Tactical Perk
      • ‘Cluster Bomb’ – Tactical variant of the ‘Cluster Bomb’ dealing half the damage of its non-tactical counterpart.
  • Ninja – New Subclass: Piercing Lotus featuring characters Edge and Luna
    • Description – Skilled spear warrior that makes a point to poison enemies with waves of shuriken before striking them down.
    • New Perks
      • ‘Pointy Fury’ – Increases spear combo attack efficiency by 150%.
      • ‘Poking Holes’ – The Ninja deals 28% more damage with spears to afflicted targets.
      • ‘Fan of Stars’ – The Ninja throws 2 additional throwing stars. All throwing stars are thrown instantly in a spreading arc.
    • New Support Perk
      • ‘Heaviest Attacks’ – Increases melee heavy attack damage by 10/20/30%
  • Outlander – New Subclass: Shock Gunner featuring characters Grizzly and Buzz
    • Description – Weaves in and out of enemies stunning them and finishing them off with with close ranged weapons.
    • New Perks
      • ‘Pump It Up’ – Increases shotgun rate of fire by 35%.
      • ‘In and Outlander’ – Eliminating 3 enemies within 10 seconds after using Phase Shift will refund the Phase Shift charge.
      • ‘Shocking Embrace’ – Increases the duration of Shock Tower by 3 seconds if placed with a Charge Fragment.
      • ‘Run And Stun’ – Passing through enemies with Phase Shift applies a 3 seconds stun.
    • New Tactical Perk
      • ‘Shocking Embrace’ – Increases the duration of Shock Tower by 3 seconds if placed with a Charge Fragment.
  • Constructor – New Subclass: Demolitionist featuring Penny and Bull
    • Description – Explosives expert who corrals enemies with Decoy before finishing them with a hail of missiles.
    • New Perks
      • ‘Faster Explosions’ – Increases explosive weapon reload speed by 35%
      • ‘Enduring Machine’ –  Your weapons take 60% less durability damage while on tiles affected by BASE.
• Hero Abilities that lock the character’s movement can no longer be interrupted by knockback. The following abilities have been adjusted to use this new behaviour:
  • ‘Phase Shift’
  • ‘Shockwave’
  • ‘Bullrush’
  • ‘Dragonslash’
  • ‘Anti-Material Charge’
• We’ve changed how Energy-Reducing perks work in some cases in order to prevent them from reducing costs of activations to 0.
  • We now have perks which improve “Energy Efficiency” of certain actions (such as heavy attacks with melee weapons).
  • Energy Efficiency is expressed in a percentage format i.e. “Improves Energy Efficiency of Combo Attacks by 150%”.
  • The value represents the expected extra usage of the ability once the perk has been acquired.
  • Implementation has changed from a multiplier on cost to a divisor on cost.
    • I.e. – a 60% cost reduction on a 50 energy cost is analogous to a 150% increase in usage over 100 stamina.
• Outlander
  • ‘Phase Shift’ now passes through enemies by default.
  • ‘Phase Shift’ now inherits more forward velocity when used mid-air.
• Constructor
  • Adjustments to the ‘Decoy’ Ability :
    • Base duration reduced from 12 seconds to 7 seconds.
    • ‘Decoy’ can no longer be destroyed and will always last the full duration.
    • Reduced the duration increase of ‘Going and Going’ from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
    • ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ Has been removed from these Subclasses:
      Controller, Sentinel, and Riot Control.
      • Controller now has ‘Decoy Stun’ Instead of ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’.
      • Sentinel now has ‘Grease the Wheels’ instead of ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’.
      • Riot Control now has ‘Going and Going’ instead of ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’.
• Ninja
  • Changed ‘Easy Sword’ from “Reduces sword combo attack energy cost by 60%.” to “Increases sword combo attack efficiency by 150%.”
  • Changed ‘Easier Sword’ from “Improves the energy cost reduction of ‘Easy Sword’ by another 20%.” to “Improves the energy efficiency of ‘Easy Sword’ by another 150%.”
  • ‘Shadow Stance’ now triggers off of all melee kills, not just edged weapons.
  • ‘Scythe To Meet You’s’ snare duration has been increased to 2 seconds from 1 second.
  • The sound effects for ‘Crescent Kick’ have been updated.
• Soldier
  • ‘Explosive Rounds’ timer no longer resets after 15 seconds without a kill.
  • ‘Goin’ Commando!!!’ now enters into a slight zoom when pressing the Targeting Input.

Bug Fixes

• ‘Shockwave’ no longer causes the Soldier to collide with enemies. This should prevent the “crowd surfing” behaviour seen when using ‘Shockwave’ on tightly packed groups of enemies.
• Fixed an issue with BASE’s tooltip showing incorrect segment extensions with Heavy BASE Kyle.
• Fixed an issue with ‘Overclocked’ Trap’s tooltip showing an incorrect value for decreased reload rate. The tooltip now reads correctly at 20%.
• Corrected an issue which was causing the Soldier Perk ‘Start Up’ to display incorrect values.
• Corrected a tooltip issue with certain perks that were not showing their Support or Tactical Bonuses:
  • ‘Sure Shot’
  • ‘Hit’em While They’re Down’
  • ‘Tough Traps’
  • ‘Bullet Bonanza’
  • ‘Vigorous Strikes’

MISSIONS + SYSTEMS

• Blockbuster Event – Part 1: Origin Story
  • There are reports of a strange new husk lurking about harassing survivors and Ray has disappeared! Find out what has happened in the aftermath of the comet crash in this brand new questline.
  • Blockbuster Tickets can be found inside Upgrade and Daily Llamas, and earned by completing quests and defeating Miniboss mission alerts.
  • Blockbuster Llama is available in the Loot Tab
    • Contains at least one Epic Quality or Higher Military Weapon or ShadowOps Hero.
    • Costs 500 Blockbuster Tickets.
  • Completing the first week of quests rewards a choice of one Legendary Ranged Weapon (Bald Eagle, Silenced Specter, or Crossbow)
  • Repeatable Quest to kill a miniboss that awards 50 Gold
• Loot Llama Price Reduction!
  • V-Buck prices on several of the Loot Llamas have been reduced!
    • Upgrade Llama: 100 to 50
    • Weapon Llama: 350 to 200
    • Ranged Weapon Llama: 350 to 200
    • Melee Weapon Llama: 350 to 200
    • People Llama: 350 to 200
    • It’s a Trap Llama: 350 to 200
  • Bundles containing multiple Llamas have been reduced in price as well.
  • Players who have purchased these Llamas in the past will receive an equivalent value in free Troll Stash Llamas they can redeem in the Loot tab.
• Each stack of 1000 Storm Tickets will be converted into Neon Llamas.
  • Anyone who had at least one Storm Ticket will receive a Llama.
• Mini Llamas now drop 30 to 50 Gold, and drop an additional item if they become Silver.
• Gold no longer resets each season.
  • Seasonal Gold has been renamed to Gold as a result.
  • Gold caps at 5000. Gold above this cap will not be lost, but you will stop earning Gold until you have spent enough to drop below the cap.
• Mission Alerts:
  • Miniboss Mission Alerts are more common during this event and award between 50 and 120 Blockbuster Tickets, scaled based on difficulty.
    • These tickets are granted in addition to their normal rewards (schematics, transform keys, etc)
    • Quota: 10 per day.
  • Mutant Storm Mission Alerts have returned to normal levels and no longer reward event tickets.
    • Quota: 3 per day.
• The Upgraded Outlanders Mission Modifier no longer increases fragment capacity due to the recent change greatly increasing base fragment capacity. The Modifier still increases Outlander Ability Damage.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed reward chest having low resolution textures at the end of mission.
• Fixed crafting recipes for Neon Weapons to be correct for energy weapons.
• The chance for Impulse Grenades and Remote Explosive World Drops has been returned to normal (should now be equal to the M80).
• Harvest and collect quest items now drop no matter how the quest item was destroyed. Previously, players would have to make the destroying blow with their harvesting pickaxe. This now works the same way as Daily Destroy.

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• Added the Military weapons set, available via Blockbuster Llamas:
  • Whisper 45: Silenced semi-auto pistol
  • Specter: Fully-automatic submachine gun with high rate of fire.
    • Epic and Legendary versions have a silencer.
  • Ground Pounder: Fast-firing and accurate semi-auto shotgun.
  • Crossbow: Sniper weapon that fires a projectile with no damage falloff.
  • Bald Eagle: Slow-firing heavy pistol with great damage and knockback.
    • Increased the damage and impact of the Bald Eagle by 30%.
• The following scoped sniper rifles no longer have damage fall off. Additionally, their range has been increased from 20 Tiles to 50 Tiles.
  • Auto Sniper Rifle
  • Extinguisher
  • Exterminator
  • Deathwing
  • Scoped Bullseye
  • Scoped Deadeye
  • One Shot
  • Heartbreaker
  • Hydraulic Sniper Rifle
  • Tsunami
  • Scavenger Sniper Rifle
  • Sunsetter
  • Scoped Wasp
  • Scoped Dragonfly
  • Burst Sniper
  • Triple Tap
  • Neon Sniper Rifle
  • Vindertech Sniper Rifle
  • Vindertech Jolter
  • Frostbite
• The following non-scoped sniper rifles range increased from 13 Tiles to 20 tiles:
  • Hunting Rifle
  • Lil’Bee
  • Stinger
  • Wasp
  • Dragonfly
  • Ralphie’s Revenge

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the +30% Weapon Damage when aiming down sights alteration was increasing Weapon Damage by 75%. The alteration now increases Weapon Damage by the correct amount.
• Added missing drop sound effects to many spear weapons.
• Fixed the evolution skill requirements for the Krypton Sword to use the correct skills; evolving the weapons now requires the Sword and Spear skill and not the Axe and Scythe Skill.
• All shotguns should now damage non-friendly environmental objects.
• Bald Eagle icon updated to be distinct from the Falcon pistol.

UI

• Purchasing multiple Llamas in the Loot tab now show the total cost.
• Adjusted the layout of Daily Reward items to include the item name.
• Weapon tooltips now show headshot damage.

Bug Fixes

• Reduced the rating number displayed for Group Missions at the victory screen and on the Objective tab in the menu.
  • This now matches the recommended rating of the mission rather than enemy level.
• Fixed a problem on the end-of-mission victory screen where the drone appears twice to beam players back to Homebase.
• Fixed an issue where the displayed Homebase Power Level was visually capped at level 132 when players’ actual power levels were higher.
• Leveling Up or Evolving something now says “Please Wait” instead of just disabling the button and appearing unresponsive.
• Recycle mode resulting materials panel can now be scrolled with a controller.
• Recycling Details modal dialog can now be scrolled if necessary.
• Fixed a case where the top menu bar would become unresponsive on PC.

AUDIO

• Volume decrease on the Exploration and Combat music to help the overall mix.

Season 4 starts now! Jump in and witness the aftermath of the impact.
4.0 Patch Notes: https://t.co/siqlV4Bfu6 pic.twitter.com/Zuqhlkmeco

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) May 1, 2018