There’s a new Fortnite: Battle Royale update out today, implemented after a brief downtime at 4:00 AM EST and live on all platforms now. V3.2 isn’t as big as some recent updates — last week saw a new weapon and a new point of interest on the map — but it’s an interesting one regardless, mostly for its addition of the new “Teams of 20″ mode, a variant on the 50 vs. 50 mode that splits players up into five teams of 20 rather than two big teams. It will only be around for a limited time, but it’s a fun way to shake up the rhythm in the meantime.
I love these modes: they bring a strange element of security to a game where I usually spend most of my time looking over my shoulder and running for cover. All of a sudden you gain the ability to fill your screen up with friendly faces rather than specks in the distance who have a habit of killing you before you have a chance to breather. It leads you to develop an entirely different sort of strategy than you can even manage in 4-player squad mode, whether that’s supporting players on your team by watching their sixes with an AR, or by spending your time building and repairing elaborate forts that would be impossible to take advantage of with fewer people around. I’m not a great Fortnite player, all things told, but this mode offers me a chance of imagining that I really might make it to a Victory Royale if I luck into having a few talented fighters on my team and keep my head down enough to make it to the end. Teams of 20 forces engagement with a storm that shrinks a little quicker than in normal play, so hop in and hope for the best.
Aside from that, Save the World gets an interesting new update: players had recently been entertaining themselves by building elaborate racetracks meant for the new hoverboard, something that Epic is absolutely here for: it’s released a special boost pad to spruce those racetracks up. We also have a new “Burnout” skin in Battle Royale that feels like it has a sort of a biker theme.
That’s the thrust of it, with the usual suite of bug fixes and minor gameplay tweaks: we can now dance while riding rockets, which is a relief, let me tell you. The Hunting Rifle also now has perfect accuracy when aiming and not moving, letting it serve more of the deadly precise role it was designed for. You can read the full patch notes here.
