Fortnite Season 9: Here’s everything that’s new with update v9.00

Gameplay changes & bug fixes

In addition to all these new features, locations and weapons, update v9.00 brings quite a bit of change that’ll impact your overall gameplay experience.

Beyond Slipstreams, we now have Air Vents, which are powerful gusts of air that can launch players a short distance and grant immunity to fall damage.

The Tactical Shotgun has received a buff, increasing its base damage from 66/70/74 to 71/75/79. The Drum Gun availability has been reduced to 7.155 percent, down from the previous 16.732 percent.

Epic Games is also aware of an issue with disconnected. If for some reason you are disconnected or force leave a match, your character will remain there for 60 seconds. This is aimed at discouraging forced exits, as your character will still have the potential to provide elimination points to an enemy.

Another big issue is disconnecting during Duos. Addressing this in the blog post, Epic explained that a match in Arena or Tournament modes will not count toward the 10 placement matches if a Duo partner disconnects while loading into the pre-match island prior to boarding the Battle Bus.

Epic recognizes this puts the remaining player at an unfair disadvantage more often than not, but the developer is also aware that some players are good enough to overcome these odds. While not specifically addressed in this update, Epic does have a solution for this coming in a future update.

"In the v9.10 update, we are planning to add specific new in-game messaging and options to address the rare cases where a teammate disconnects while loading in the pre-match island. This messaging will provide you with the option to confirm leaving the match, or the option to decline and play through the match as the solo remaining player. Note: If you do not make a selection, we will default to removing you from the match before the Battle Bus launches."

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Other notable bug fixes and gameplay improvements include:

• Resolved an issue with the UI showing health gains incorrectly if the player canceled the consumable close to completion time.
• PS4 controller lighting not always matching your pin color when in Squads.
• Players not able to use Hold to Swap if they previously picked an item up normally
• Adjusted turbo building to be more forgiving under poor network conditions
• Fixed cases of jittery movement under certain conditions.

Beyond these few notes, there are all sorts of improvements made to Fortnite’s general performance, audio, and user interface across all platforms. On mobile, auto fire will trigger on vehicles. The frame rate has been improved on the Nintendo Switch. These are just some of what players can look forward to with update v9.00, with the full patch notes here.

What do you think of Fortnite Season 9?