Changes Of Fortnite Chapter 2 You Need To Know

The newest season of Fortnite Battle Royale adds more than just a new map.

The Fortnite black hole event is finally over! To cap off Season 10, Epic Games shut down all of Fortnite… yes, all of it, even the lobby. When a gigantic-sized countdown ended, the island was sucked into a black hole, which everyone was forced to watch for nearly 40 hours. But at the end of the tunnel, there was light. And in that light, we have Season 11 — or, to be more precise, Chapter 2!

Fortnite Battle Royale is back, labeled now as “Fortnite Chapter 2.” And after such an Epic-sized (ha, puns) event, the game was bound to come back with some changes. But while some were expected, quite a few were unprecedented.

We don’t have full patch notes from the team —can you imagine the size of that!? — but there are some absolutely major changes made to the game you need to know. Check out what we’ve found that you need to know right now.

New Map

Obviously, the first thing you’ll notice when take your first Fortnite Chapter 2 drop is the new map. As expected, the new season wiped out the old map, though the two-day hiatus that followed as a little unexpected.

What happened as a result is… well, pretty revolutionary. Now, all players in Fortnite are going to drop onto this neat new island Epic has whipped up:

As we’ll discuss later, there’s a ton of water to be found. But there’s also interesting new areas to check out, such as the sketchy nuclear Steamy Stacks, the hilly Misty Meadows, and the beachside Sweaty Sands. Of course, Retail Row is somehow back, because you can’t kill corporate America, or whatever this Western conglomerate is.

A mile-high picture can’t give a perfect idea of what’s to be found, so be sure to explore everywhere!

Control resets

Did you have custom keybinds for your controllers or keyboard? So much for those.

It looks like the patch not only brought a new map, but new default controls. It’s pretty annoying and inconvenient, especially if you’re someone like me who changes half the keyboard. Worse, though, may be players with “accessible” controllers that need to readjust.

If you tweaked anything, make sure you go into your settings and fix that up. Don’t wanna jump when you meant to squat! (Or vice-versa.)

More Fortnite:

Water activities

If you missed out on your chance to go to the pool or the beach this summer, you’re in luck. Looks like Fortnite has added, firstly a few more areas of water, as you can see in the prior map. And it’s not for nothing. Before, you’d have to wade through swamps and whatnot slowly in order to find loot or get from one place to another. Now, water’s a little more exciting.

First of all, now you can take a dip a little quicker. Players can swim instead of waddle through water-covered areas such as the new river or the new lake around the new island. If that’s not cutting it, your team now has the option to pick up a speedy little boat to navigate the waters.

If you have a free minute or few, you can also fish! You’ll find some fishing rods around watered area; just pick one up and chill out near the edge of the water. In the water may be supplies, weapons, and throwable little cans.

Picking up bodies

Yeah, you read that right. You can literally pick up bodies now, in case your friend isn’t crawling fast enough. This means you can get them up and going to a safe enough area to heal them before someone gets to them.

Conversely, it looks like you can also pick up your enemies. And if you’re in the right position, you can apply some good old fall damage by yeeting them from an applicable height:

Whatever works for your squad, squad.

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About the Author

Victoria Rose

Victoria is a Brooklyn-based, chaotic-good former dungeon master and a Contributor-At-Large for Fanbyte. She's a self-proclaimed esports pundit, and used to do Dota 2 news and reporting as a full-time part-time gig. She's also four red pandas stacked in a hoodie. [she/her/hers or they/their/theirs]