Season 8 is upon us. Here's what's new.
Season 8 of Fortnite might be one of the more hyped seasons in recent memory - especially since Season 7 was two weeks longer than the rest of the seasons. Here's what to expect before you drop into the Fortnite map for your first game of Season 8
Battle Pass
The Season 8 Battle Pass did not disappoint, with tons of outfits, weapon wraps, gliders, contrails, emotes, and more to collect as you progress through the weeks.
Those who finished their 13 Overtime challenges will receive the Battle Pass for free when they log in. Everyone else can purchase it for 950 V-Bucks.
Pirate Cannon
The Pirate Cannon is the new weapon/mobility item added into Fortnite for Season 7. You can climb in and launch yourself into the air, crashing through buildings and damaging players you strike.
Hitting a player with a cannonball shot will deal 100 damage for a direct hit and 50 to those within a small radius. These Cannons will be environmental items, meaning you can pick them up and hold them in your inventory.
New Locations
Season 8 features two new locations: Sunny Steps and Lazy Lagoon. These come with lava and volcanic vents. The lava will deal one damage per tick when you stand in it, and cause players to bounce off of the ground.
Volcanic vents are another mobility feature in Fortnite, which is always welcome. They shoot you into the air and allow you to re-deploy your glider.
Vault
We already knew that the X-4 Stormwing was going to see the inside of the vault with the Season 8 update, but it wasn't alone.
Epic also vaulted the Shopping Cart, Chiller Grenade, ATK, and Sneaky Snowman with this patch. Shopping carts have been useless for a while, and ATKs seem to have been adequately replaced by the new Drift Boards.
Gameplay and Weapon Changes
Epic made quite a few changes relating to weapons and gameplay as well. They changed the Hunting Rifle Icon and made high-tier assault rifles a bit rarer.
The availability of common and uncommon assault rifles went up while the availability of rare, epic, and legendary ARs went down. This only means that fewer players will be running around with purple and gold assault rifles.
Epic added a ping system to Fortnite as well, clearly borrowing from the hyper-successful Apex Legends.
One huge change that players have been asking for is an improvement to in-game sounds. The footsteps will now be more distinct when a player is above you, and Epic made the distance of above or below footsteps more realistic.
We can now also tell the difference between friendly and enemy gliders, reducing a bit of confusion on that front. You can also now see a campfire through a thermal scope.
Some of the additional audio changes include:
- Down-but-not-out audio alert
- Stereo sounds for all weapons
- Improved Rocket Launcher "incoming" sound
- Foley audio feedback for crouching and ADSing
- Change to damage and elimination audio
- New shield break sound
- New "weak point" sound when harvesting
Players can now assist one another in their daily and weekly challenges as well. You can enable the "party assist" feature prior to the match.
Oh, and the Infinite Dab emote now lasts for 12 hours in the lobby. Huge change.
You can take a look at the full list of patch notes here including some bug fixes and Creative Mode changes. Follow @FortniteTracker on Twitter to stay up to date with all of the latest Fortnite news.