Epic Games drop new hints on future of Pump Shotgun and pullout delay

Epic Games have revealed new information about the future of the Pump Shotgun and shotgun pullout delay in Fortnite Battle Royale. 

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The Pump Shotgun was one of the earliest weapons to be added in Fortnite BR, surviving for nearly eight whole seasons before being vaulted at the start of Season 9. 

The weapon was widely considered to among the most powerful in the game, especially in the competitive meta, and thus its removal caused quite a stir and outrage in the community.

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In their May 31 competitive AMA on Reddit, Epic mentioned the Pump in one of their answers, dropping a hint that it could potentially return in the future.

• Read More: Fortnite Battle Royale cheat sheet map for Season 9 Week 4 challenges

“The Pump Shotgun is still available in Creative,” they wrote. “And always has the potential to be unvaulted.” 

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What about the shotgun pullout delay?

The reason they were talking about the Pump Shotgun in the first place was because they were asked a question about the future of shotgun pullout delay in Fortnite BR.

The pullout delay was first added at the start of Season 5, in order to mitigate the effects of the ‘double Pump’ – a popular strategy that allowed players to speed up the fire rate of the Pump by switching back-and-forth between two shotguns while firing. 

• Read More: Epic Games announce nerf for newly released Burst SMG

With the Pump now out of the game, players are naturally curious as to whether Epic would consider decreasing or even completely removing the pullout delay.

“We’re looking into possible tuning iterations here,” Epic wrote. “The main thing we want to keep in mind is that the Pump Shotgun is still available in Creative, and always has the potential to be unvaulted, so we want to make sure that any adjustments take its unique characteristics into consideration. 

While that obviously doesn’t reveal whether or not the pullout delay will be adjusted, it does essentially inform players that Epic will either bring back the Pump from the vault, and thus keep the delay, or make adjustments to it and keep the powerful shotgun stored away from the default core modes. 

At the end of the day, as has been proven on numerous occasions, Epic usually do what they want, so players should always expect the unexpected when it comes to the popular battle royale title.