Fortnite’s Battle Royale v3.5 Update Overview: An Amazing New Feature

Fortnite’s player base is continually growing as we speak. When I first played it (Day-0), I wasn’t impressed, but now there’s a lot to be appreciated.

Of course, being a free-to-play game readily encourages new players to jump in. However, the quality updates that the game has been receiving is yet another reason as to why the game is popular.

A few hours ago, an update of 2.71 GB (v3.5 for PC) landed with a lot of improvements while introducing some new features.

Before talking about my experience with the new update, let us check out the major changes in the patch notes addressed to this update:

v3.5 Update Changelog (Fortnite: Battle Royale)

REPLAY SYSTEM

• Save your matches and watch them from any angle!
• Speed up or slow down the action.
• Help tell your story better with player outlines and nameplates.
• Several Camera Modes to choose from:
  • Third Person
    • Follows and orbits around the selected player.
    • 3 different follow modes; Off, Auto, Lazy.
  • Drone Follow
    • Drone style camera that always keeps the selected player in the frame.
  • Drone Attach
    • Drone style camera that is loosely attached to the selected player.
  • Drone Free
    • Drone style camera that is free to fly around the island.
  • Gameplay
    • This camera shows what the selected player saw during gameplay.
  • Adjust cinematic camera settings
    • Exposure
    • Aperture
    • Focal Length
    • Focus Distance
  • Currently available on PC and console only.

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• Port-a-Fort added.
  • Epic Rarity.
  • Drops in stacks of 1. Can stack up to 5 in inventory.
  • When the Port-a-Fort is thrown, a pre-made fort is constructed instantly at the impact point.
    • The Port-a-Fort is made out of metal and is three stories tall.
    • The bottom floor is 1×1 with a door for entry. Tires inside allow for easy access to the roof.
• Decreased Guided Missile maximum turn rate by 75%.
• Reduced Guided Missile movement speed by 15%.
• Added a short equip time to many weapons (particularly, those with a slower rate of fire).
  • This will reduce the effectiveness of quickly switching between weapons for high burst-damage.
  • Removed the reloading animation on the Pump Shotgun.
  • Weapons affected are:
    • Rocket Launcher
    • Hand Cannon
    • Revolver
    • Tactical Shotgun
    • Pump Shotgun
    • Heavy Shotgun
    • Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle
    • Hunting Rifle
    • Crossbow
• Adjusted item availability in Vending Machines.
  • Reduced chance of Chug Jug by 50%.
  • Increased chance of Medium Ammo weapons in Rare Vending Machine by 100%.
  • Reduced chance of Explosive Ammo weapons in Rare Vending Machine by 50%.
  • Reduced chance of Explosive Ammo weapons in Epic Vending Machine by 25%.
  • Increased chance of Heavy Ammo weapons in Epic Vending Machine by 25%.
  • Reduced chance of Explosive Ammo weapons in Legendary Vending Machine by 25%.
  • Increased chance of Heavy Ammo weapons in Legendary Vending Machine by 25%.
• Reduced drop rate of Remote Explosives in floor loot by roughly 33%.
• Updated Medium Ammo inventory icon to make it more easily identifiable.

GAMEPLAY

• Limited Time Mode: 50V50 v2
  • Two teams of 50 fight to the finish!
    • Due to this being a “large squad” mode, Profile Stats will not be tracked. Daily & Weekly challenges will still work, with the exception of the Squad-based challenges (‘Place Top 6 in Squads’, etc.).
  • Storm & Map
    • Each team has a bus, approaching the island from opposite directions. On the map, the friendly bus has a blue outline, an enemy has red.
    • Final storm circle visible on the minimap at the start.
    • Players have 10 minutes to loot the map as the storm closes in on the circle, then 5 minutes to fight, and another 5 minutes as the storm shrinks to the end.
    • Supply drops come in batches of 3-6, fall every two minutes, and only land in the final storm circle.
    • Added dotted line to map, which indicates the “battle lines” between the two teams. Crossing the line will make running into enemies more likely.
  • Loot
    • Farming resources increased 75% over the default.
    • Increased floor loot spawn likelihood by 15%.
    • Floor Loot spawns double ammo.
    • Ammo boxes spawn triple ammo.
    • Chests spawn double ammo & consumables.
    • Supply drops spawn double ammo, and an extra consumable, resource drop and trap.

You may want to look at the detailed patch notes to check for the bug fixes and other adjustments.

You May Also Like – PUBG’s New 4×4 Map Promises To Give A Balanced Experience With Faster Gameplay

Our Experience With The New Update

The main highlight of the update apart from the “Port-a-fort” throwable is the “Replay” functionality.

The replay doesn’t take much space on your hard drive (or the SSD). For me, it was merely 1-4 MB in size while I had the 1080p resolution gameplay with EPIC visual quality in action.

You’ll find the toggle option for this feature under the Game tab in the settings. Here’s an image for your reference:

When you reel into the replay, you will find a lot of options to encounter a cinematic experience of your gameplay. Well, it is something similar to Nvidia’s Ansel, but you don’t get the option to capture a picture natively. You would have to utilize Nvidia’s screenshot ability to capture your favorite moment.

Here’s how the replay UI looks like:

You even get to change the camera mode as follows:

• Third Person
• Drone Follow
• Drone Attach
• Drone Free
• Gameplay perspective

When I fired up my replay, I was amazed how great it looked!

Where To Find The Replay Option In Fortnite’s Battle Royale?

Now that the Leaderboards option from the menu bar is gone, you will find a “Career” option. When you head into that, you will see options for an overview of your profile, check replays, and check the leaderboards.

Leaderboards: Is It Working?

It seems to be active after the update, but I’m not sure whether it is accurately tracking the positions/scores or not.

Here’s what it looked like (Oh no, I’m an elite player!):

I didn’t take a lot of screenshots, but here’s my favorite:

You can even adjust the exposure, focal length, and toggle the auto-focus feature.

Bugs/Glitches

I’ve had a few hours into the game (after the new update), and I haven’t yet encountered a bug that needs to be addressed.

Final Thoughts

Although I didn’t get the port-a-fort impact, the replay feature was worth appreciating.

The update fixed a lot of pesky bugs and improved a lot of things that the players suggested. So, it’s an update which addresses quite a lot of improvements and introduces some new features as well.

Did you try the game after the recent update? Excited about the 50v50 event?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Also, if you dive into the replay mode to capture some fantastic shots, do share that in the comments down below!