Fortnite Battle Royale Reaches 10M Player Milestone

Just one week ago, Fortnite Battle Royale reached their 7 million player milestone. Now, they are proud to announce a playerbase that is equivalent to the entire population of Sweden at 10 million. Keep in mind that the game has only been out for two weeks, so this is certainly a big deal. Obviously, it helps that the game is free. It also helps that the battle royale gameplay brought to the mainstream by PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds remains extremely popular.

More Updates Coming to Fortnite Battle Royale

To keep fans happy, developer EPIC games has been cracking down on cheaters and implementing changes. An outline of the upcoming 1.7.1 patch is listed below. Most notably, it will re-enable DirectX10 hardware support, giving players with a lower-spec GPU to participate in the fun. That should certainly help getting that player count to double further.

Gameplay

• We have increased the travel movement of the Battle Bus and increased skydiving velocity in order to offer an alternative strategy to jumping out of the Bus at the first possible moment.
  • Increased Battle Bus movement speed by 50% (from 4000 to 6000).
  • Increased skydiving terminal velocity by 50% (from 4000 to 6000).
• The final storm safe zone will now close completely instead of holding at a 10 cm radius.
• Players can now search supply drops without interruption from storm damage.
• Improved the pre-game warmup UI to indicate the server is “Waiting for players to connect” and “Battle Bus launching” when the lobby is full.
• Fixed the glider occasionally not auto-deploying at the correct height.
• Fixed an issue which caused Supply Drops to become stuck in the air after player-built structures beneath them were destroyed.

Weapons

• Changes from the Live Update on Oct. 6:
  • Increased Semi-Auto Sniper Rifle damage by 50%.
    • This weapon was often passed up because of its lower damage. This increase will put it closer in line with its intended effectiveness.
  • Decreased Scoped Assault Rifle damage by 33%.
    • This weapon was too effective at its current role and needed to be scaled back slightly.
  • Decreased Grenade, Grenade Launcher, and Rocket Launcher environmental damage to 375 (was 450).
    • Metal forts will now require two explosive blasts (instead of one). Late-game bases are too easily destroyed and we want to promote building diversity.
  • Increased Rocket Launcher reload time by 20%.
    • It’s a little too easy to spam rockets. We want the Rocket Launcher to be a powerful weapon, but it’s a little too good right now.
  • Increased Submachine Gun damage by 10%.
    • The Submachine Gun is underperforming at close to medium range combat. This damage increase will improve its effectiveness slightly. We’ll continue to keep an eye on it.
• Renamed several Semi-Auto weapons
  • ‘Rifle’ to ‘Assault Rifle (Burst).’
  • ‘Handgun’ to ‘Pistol.’
  • ‘Shotgun’ to ‘Tactical Shotgun.’
• An issue which prevented explosive weapons from damaging Supply Drops. Fixed.
• A bug which caused the pump action shotgun to occasionally double-fire. Fixed.
• A bug which caused grenades to occasionally deal no damage. Fixed.
• An issue which caused bullet impact effects to only be being visible to players in the immediate vicinity. Fixed.
• An issue which caused the weapon reticle to disappear. Fixed.

Duos/Squads

• Eliminations will now be awarded to the player who downs an enemy regardless of who finishes off that player in the DBNO (Down, But Not Out) state.
• Increased health after being revived from the DBNO state.
  • Health increased from 25 to 30.
• Shields will no longer protect you from damage while in the DBNO state.
  • You will keep any remaining shield if a teammate revives you.
• Friendly fire damage will now display the appropriate visual hit effects.
• Squad’s finishing placement displaying the incorrect number in some cases. Fixed.
• An issue which caused tires to bounce DBNO players. Fixed.
• An issue which allowed traps to bounce players in the DBNO state. Fixed.

UI

• There is now a Report Player button on the end-of-match screen to report players.
• Critical hit damage on shielded players is now displayed in blue, like other displayed shielded damage numbers.
• The color of each player’s marker in a duo/squad are now consistent with everywhere they are displayed.
• Player indicators on the minimap will now match the color the player was assigned instead of all players showing as a cyan color.
• Changed the item drop icon on the Inventory screen from a trash can to a “drop arrow” to more clearly indicate its purpose.
• You can now hold down ‘Shift’ before dragging an item to only drop one of that item.
• Teammates will no longer show up as eliminated when they are loading into the map.
• Fixed an issue which prevented eliminated players from entering text in the Send Feedback interface when using a controller.

World

• Added name labels to the map for existing locations.
  • Tomato Town
  • Dusty Depot
  • Salty Springs

…and more. To check out the full patch notes list, visit: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/1-7-1-patch-notes?lang=en-US