It seems hard to believe that Fortnite, which celebrates its first birthday tomorrow, has only been around for a year. Fortnite has been so successful, so written about and obsessed over, that it feels like the game has been with us for a decade.
Of course, Epic Games is rolling out a big patch for Fortnite’s first b-day. It includes a new set of Birthday Challenges and gear, the return of the sandbox Playground Mode, and a weapon for Battle Royale, and the new “Canny Valley” campaign missions for the original Save the World version of the game. It should be noted that the Birthday Challenges haven’t rolled out for all players yet, but Epic is promising they’ll show up when the store refreshes at 8pm ET.
Related Epic Programmer Says Next Generation Consoles Will Enable Devs to Cross the Uncanny Valley
Here are your Fortnite version 5.10 patch notes:
Fortnite Battle Royale
Birthday Event
- You can now find birthday cakes placed around the map with consumable slices next to them. Enjoy those tasty treats! Cake slices give +5 health and +5 shield instantly when consumed.
- Complete three birthday event challenges to unlock a new emote, spray, and Backbling.
- The Battlebus and Supply Drops have been decorated to celebrate #Fortnite1st.
Limited Time Mode: Playground
Playground is a low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild. Build massive structures. Practice with the weapons and items. Fight against your friends. This mode returns with improvements for a limited time on Wednesday, July 25. Have fun!
What’s New?
- Players can now switch teams in-game. Join the same team to work together creatively, join separate teams to practice fighting each other! Note: Voice chat will remain on across all teams, future iterations of the mode will offer more customization.
- Aim assist will work when using a gamepad against players on an opposing team.
- Matches will no longer end if one player leaves the server.
- Golf carts have been added and spawn 100% of the time.
- Ammo cans spawn 10x the amount of ammo.
- Removed grey vending machines, increased the chances of higher-tier machines spawning.
- Increased launch bounce pads spawn likelihood.
- Lowered forced glider deploy height, so players can get back into the action more quickly.
- Increased max rocket ammo cap to 60.
- Increased rocket ammo drop rates.
- Added 100 Supply Drops.
- Chests now spawn 3 weapons and more ammo consumables than normal.
- Floor loot now spawns 3 items.
- Increased Chug Jug and Slurp Juice spawn chances, decreased Bandages.
- Added Chug Jugs to floor loot.
- Respawn timer lowered from 10s to 3s.
Weapons + Items
Compact SMG added.
- Available in Epic and Legendary variants. 23-24 base damage.
- Uses Light Ammo.
- 50 round capacity.
- Can be found from floor loot, chests, Supply Drops, and Vending Machines.
- Slurp Juice now grants 1 health every 0.5 seconds, up to a total of 75. If health is full, shield will be granted instead.
Supply Drop loot rates adjusted.
Weapons (drops 1)
- Assault Rifles to 25% from 14.2%.
- Explosives to 25% from 28.5%.
- Compact SMG 14.58%.
- Sniper Rifles to 14.58% from 28.5%.
- Heavy Shotgun to 10.42% from 7.1%.
- Minigun to 10.42% from 14.2%.
- Removed Hand Cannon, Dual Pistols, and Silenced Pistol.
Traps (drops 2)
- Launch Pad to 44.44% from 9.6%.
- Cozy Campfire to 33.33% from 7.5%.
- Bouncer to 22.22% from 15%.
- Removed Damage Traps.
Consumables (drops 2)
- Shield Potion to 20% from 19.1%
- Small Shield Potion to 17.50% from 12.7%
- Med Kit to 13.75% from 6.3%
- Slurp Juice to 11.25% from 5.11%
- Clinger to 10% from 6.3%
- Remote Explosives to 10% from 3.3%
- Impulse Grenade to 10% from 4%
- Chug Jug to 7.5% from 2.1%
- Removed Boogie Bombs, Grenades, Bandages, Stink Bombs, Port-a-Forts, and Bush.
Materials (drops 2)
- Wood to 33% from 47.6%.
- Stone to 33% from 35.7%.
- Metal to 33% from 16.6%.
Gameplay
Changes to building materials.
- Wood wall starting health to 80 from 100.
- Stone wall starting health to 80 from 90.
- Wood wall max health to 150 from 200.
- Metal wall max health to 500 from 400.
- Metal build time to 25s from 20s.
Storm Circle changes.
- Safezone 2 wait time to 120 from 150.
- Safezone 2 shrink time to 120 from 90.
- Safezone 4 wait time to 90 from 120.
- Safezone 6 wait time to 60 from 90.
- Safezone 7 wait time to 45 from 60.
- Safezone 8 wait time to 30 from 60.
- Safezone 9 wait time to 30 from 45.
- Added moving circle to Safezone 6.
- Added “Sprint By Default” option, when enabled this makes sprint the default movement. The sprint key will now be used to transition into walking.
- Newly-placed building pieces will now appear in a different color while players are still overlapping the structure.
- Improved handling of collision when building pieces are placed right on top of a player. It’s much more likely for players to be moved outside of newly-placed structures.
- Pickaxe damage against enemy and ally player built structures increased to 75 base damage and 150 critical damage.
- The slow motion and confetti effects for a Victory Royale will now play for the winner regardless of how they win the game.
- Changing the gyro motion of the Nintendo Switch to rotate around the roll instead of the yaw. This is intended to allow for the users to be able to hold the device in any situation and always have the motion react according to the screen direction instead of being in the Switch’s world space.
Performance
- Various server performance improvements focused on the 50v50 LTM.
- Server performance improvements were made to the custom matches used during competitive events.
- Significant All Terrain Kart (ATK) performance improvements.
Audio
- Added spatialization to the sound played when a marker is placed on the map. Now you will hear it coming from where the in-world marker was placed.
All Terrain Kart (ATK) audio improvements
- Improved All Terrain Kart (ATK) audio attenuation fall-off.
- Added a unique sound when the All Terrain Kart (ATK) is destroyed.
- Added sounds for when the All Terrain Kart (ATK) is in water.
- Improvements have been made to grenade bounce audio so they don’t sound as spammy under certain conditions.
- Lowered the volume of the AC/DC pickaxe.
- Added a unique sound for bouncing off a diving board.
- Added a unique sound for destroying cacti.
- Audio panning logic for Switch has been changed. Sources panning from one side to another will be more dramatic.
UI
- Adjusted lobby nameplate arrangement to better account for long player names.
- Added the ability to combine stackable items in player inventory if the stack sizes aren’t already capped.
- The Game Mode Select screen now sorts in the following order from left to right: Solo, Duo, Squads
Save the World
Missions + Systems
New Canny Valley Campaign Quests are now available:
- These new quests continue the storyline into Canny Valley and will appear on the quest map.
- All players with access to Canny Valley and Twine Peaks will be able to complete this new storyline.
- Storm Shield Defense and Launch the Rocket quests are unchanged and are still required to unlock new difficulties within Canny Valley.
- You can now advance directly from one Storm Shield Defense to the next, without doing every story quest in between.
- The storyline includes new quests that ask you to complete the old Storm Shield Defense quests. These will give retroactive credit if the Storm Shield Defense has already been completed.
- Old Canny Valley quests are still present and have been converted into a series of optional side quests.
Dupe Prevention added to ALL Llamas!
- After the Llama has determined the rarity and type of drop (IE – an Epic shotgun, a Legendary event hero, etc) it will select an item from that category that is not already in your inventory or Collection Book.
- This change applies to Epic, Legendary and Mythic schematics and heroes.
Quest progression changes for Twine Peaks:
- You can now advance directly from one Storm Shield Defense to the next, unlocking new areas without doing the quests in between.
- New quests have been inserted into the Twine Peaks main questline that require completion of the Storm Shield Defenses and give retroactive credit.
Missions in Canny Valley and Twine Peaks have new Required Power Ratings:
- The leader of your party must be at or above the Required Power Rating before your party can join a Mission of the listed recommended Power Rating.
- This requirement applies to Mission Alerts as well as normal missions. It does not apply to Storm Shield Defenses.
New Fortnite Birthday quests!
- Find and eat Birthday Cakes to earn event tickets.
- Eliminate Cake Sploders to earn a Birthday Hero.
New Mission Control
- We’ve begun implementing a new system for mission activation and voting. For now, we’ve added it to Retrieve the Data and Ride the Lightning missions. This new system replaces the Difficulty Pylon in the world and allows for both mission start and difficulty increase at the mission location.
- In games with more than one player, increasing difficulty requires a majority vote.
- In Ride the Lightning games with more than one player, starting the mission before the mission ready timer has expired also requires a majority vote. The default time for mission ready is currently set to 10 minutes.
- Ride the Lightning mission will now show the storm direction on locating Lars’s van instead of on depositing BluGlo.
Heroes
Birthday Brigade Ramirez, Legendary variant of Sergeant, is available from the limited-time birthday quest.
New Mythic Constructor: Steel Wool Syd, has been added to the Act 1 Canny Valley questline.
New Subclass: Kinetic Beats – Steel Wool singer that uses hardware to drop kinetic beats.
New Perks:
- Software – Increases hardware heavy attack energy efficiency by 150%.
- Lightweight – Increases hardware attack speed by 24%.
- Maximum Overload – Increases damage of Kinetic Overload by 110%.
Urban Assault Sledgehammer Soldier is available in the Event Store
- Available July 25 at 8PM Eastern Time (July 26 at 0000 GMT).
- Collision has been removed on Plasma Pulse for other players.
- Changed wording in Hammer specific abilities from “Blunt” to “Hammer”
The following heroes can now be recycled or collected, and consume inventory space:
- Rabbit Raider Jonesy
- Wukong
- Chromium Ramirez
- Diecast Jonesy
- Raven
- 8-Bit Demo
- Snuggle Specialist Sarah
- Shamrock Reclaimer
- Archaeolo-Jess
Note that all players will receive 25 free inventory spaces as a free Birthday gift, so this change should not cause overflow.
Enemies
New Zapper Husk enemy added!
- The Zapper Husk is a ranged attack enemy who fires a single, moderately powered beam at players.
- Damage and health for this husk put it midway between the Pitcher and the Blaster in difficulty.
- The Zapper Husk will be able to spawn with elemental modifiers.
Weapons + Items
Be sure to check the Store daily. You never know what may rotate in!
Birthday Llama
- Awards past event items from Llamas and Event Store, but not from Quest Rewards.
- Collection book pages have been added for these items based on which event they originally were available.
- Cost: 1,000 Road Trip tickets.
- Many freebies and special offers will appear in the Loot tab for the duration of the Birthday event.
- Reduced Defender XP leveling costs by 50%.
- Reduced the evolution cost of Defenders by 50%.
- Upgrade Llamas are now limited to 50 quantity per day.
- We’ve reduced the amount of Nuts Bolts and Mineral Powder used on a variety of traps
Gameplay
- Gold reward doubled across all Horde reward tiers.
- Perk Combobulator resource rewards increased +50% across all Horde reward tiers.
- Greatly reduced camera shake for Air Strike Gadget and in world Rift Impacts.
Removed the “Loot Llama” quest.
- Homebase Storm Shield Defense 1 now grants Constructor Leadership.
- Kyle Constructor and Hero XP quest rewards are now granted by Homebase Storm Shield Defense 1.
- Updated Founders quests to require Homebase Storm Shield Defense 1 to be completed instead of Loot Llamas. Updated Quest text to reflect this update.
- Removed Copper Knight Shotgun quest reward from Homebase Storm Shield Defense 1.
- Updated the Stonewood quest map to reflect that the Loot Llamas quest has been removed.
- Removed first Loot Llama quest requirement from Constructor Leadership node.
Added cosmetic items for Battle Royale to all Founder’s Packs. All current and new founders have been granted the following:
- Warpaint Outfit
- Warpaint Backbling
- Rose Team Leader Outfit
- Rose Team Leader Backbling
- Player input for jumping is now the same as Battle Royale. It is no longer needed to hold down spacebar while jumping to reach max jump height.
Phew! That’s a lot of stuff! And I didn’t even include the myriad of bug fixes and minor balance tweaks. If you want to check out the 100-percent-complete patch notes, you can do that, right here.
Fortnite is available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and mobile platforms.
