Surprise Fortnite update fixes three major problems in battle royale mode

Calum Patterson

Epic Games have released a surprise hotfix for Fortnite Battle Royale on Wednesday, January 16, addressing three problems which players will be overjoyed to see resolved.

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Fortnite already received a massive update on January 15, with the release of patch V7.20, which added new weapons, map changes and the return of glider redeploy as an item.

It appears that not everything was ticked off from Epic’s to do list however, as a client update has been rolled out the following day, with three very specific fixes.

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The first addresses an issue which in fact seems to have been caused inadvertently by the V7.20 update, as players started noticing that trap selection was faulty.

When trying to select a trap, players were sometimes taken to wall selection instead, but Epic have been quick to address this issue, which would have been very annoying if it had persisted.

Secondly, they have also addressed an issue which has been prevalent for some time. Labelled ‘ghost peeking’, players were able to gain a significant advantage when peeking out of cover using a scoped weapon, as they could shoot over the cover without the head/body of their character being exposed.

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Shots would not be blocked by cover when scoped in, but if the player scoped out again, the weapon would no longer be able to fire over cover, as shown in the clip below.

Epic haven’t given any details as to how exactly they have fixed this issue, so players will need to jump into a match and get a feel for the adjustments. It was even more pertinent given they just added a new scoped pistol to the game too.

The third and final change is a less significant one, but will be good news for players who use the ‘Scythe’ (a.k.a ‘reaper’) harvesting tool. The signature scythe sound was changed to the standard pickaxe noise in the V7.20 update, again perhaps inadvertently, but Epic has now reversed this change.

Given the update is so small in size, there is no downtime necessary, but players will need to perform a download to have the new settings in place.

The same download will be available later on January 16 for Nintendo Switch, although Epic has not given a precise time.

About The Author

Calum is Dexerto's Managing Editor, based in Scotland. Joining Dexerto in 2017, Calum has years of experience covering esports, gaming and online entertainment, and now leads the team to deliver the best coverage in these areas. An expert on all things Twitch and gaming influencers, he's also an expert in popular shooters like Apex Legends, CS2 and Call of Duty. You can contact Calum at calum.patterson@dexerto.com.