Fortnite Season 7 - official trailers, details, and patch notes

Season 7 has arrived with the smash of a mysterious iceberg! Winter has brought many changes to the Fortnite map for you to explore. Ziplines are a new way to help you travel to and from high terrain. For you chill and thrill seekers, the new Frosty Flights location and Expedition outposts are outfitted with the new Stormwing planes so you can take to the skies. There are tons of new areas to venture to and secrets to uncover, so stay frosty.

A new season also means a brand new Battle Pass. Over 100 new exclusive rewards are ready for you to unlock, and it still costs the same 950 V-bucks. This season, you get the Zenith and Lynx progressive outfits instantly when you purchase the Battle Pass, both of which can level-up to unlock new styles.
We’ve also added a new cosmetic item type: Wraps! These allow you to customize your weapons and vehicles with all new looks to match and complement your favorite outfits. Battle Pass owners will also get early access to their own island in Creative: a brand new place for you to build your dream Fortnite with your friends.

The Epic Games team will be taking its own holiday break this winter, so Season 7 will be extended by two weeks and end on February 28. We’ll still have new updates coming out during that break period bringing new items and challenges. You can plan on more holiday cheer to hit before the New Year as well!

Season 7 patch notes

GENERAL

Updated the minimum macOS version required to run Fortnite on Mac to 10.13.6.
Added some optimizations for when players build structures.

Bug Fixes

Fixed daily Challenge text and some other text to properly switch when changing languages.
Fixed a crash when terminating the game because of an error during initialization.
Fixed a potential performance degradation when loading content.
Modified the error window to use a scrolling region for overflowing text.

PERFORMANCE

Improved the data layout on Xbox One to improve loading times generally and reduce building streaming issues in Battle Royale.

UI

Made the Fortnite taskbar icon blink (Windows only) upon successfully entering a lobby after matchmaking if the application is minimized or inactive in the background.
Minimized chat text on PC and Mobile is no longer clickable. Clicking the chat entry text box will still expand the chat text as normal.

KNOWN ISSUES

Want to track the top community issues? Head over to our Fortnite | Community Issues Trello board here.

BATTLE ROYALE

WEAPONS + ITEMS

X-4 Stormwing Plane
5 total seats.
Seats 4 passengers (on the wings) and a pilot.
Has a mounted machine gun. Be careful, it can overheat.
Players will go into the skydiving state when exiting the X-4 Stormwing.
Use the roll buttons for sharp turns.
Pressing both will fly upside down.
Double tapping roll buttons will do a barrel roll.
Can boost and airbrake for extra mobility.

Balloons

Balloons have been reworked so that while they are equipped, it is possible to use weapons and items.
Players can attach up to 3 Balloons to their back, lifting off the ground when the 3rd Balloon is attached.
Press jump while in the air to release Balloons one at a time.
Reduced stack size from 20 to 10.

Updated scope crosshair on Scoped AR and Thermal AR.

Vaulted Items

Note: Each new season gives us an opportunity to evaluate the current item rotation. Our goal is to have a reasonable number of items to learn, while avoiding duplicates or overlapping functionality. Based on recent (and upcoming) item additions, we've selected the following for vaulting.

Shadow Stones
Port-a-Fort
Chiller
Clinger
Double Barrel Shotgun
Shockwave Grenade

GAMEPLAY

Map Updated

New Biome: Iceberg
New Location: Frosty Flights
New Location: Polar Peak
New Location: Happy Hamlet
Other unnamed Points of Interest (POIs) have also appeared across the island.
Icy Surfaces can be found in snowy areas.
Players will slide on certain frozen surfaces.
Ziplines can be found around the Iceberg and near Expedition Outposts.
Latch on and zip from one end to the other.
Aim, fire, or use items all while conveniently traveling on Ziplines.
Minimap updated.
Increased the chance of final circles ending on the outer edges of the map.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug causing weapon impact effects to play when shooting friendly players, even though no damage was being dealt.

EVENTS

New Tournament: Explorer Pop-Up Cup
Material cap set to 700/500/300 for Wood/Stone/Metal.
Players receive 100/50/50 Wood/Stone/Metal on elimination.
Resource rate increased by 40%
+50 effective health on elimination.

Safezone Changes

Increased chances of Supply Drops in later circles.
Circle 9 now travels twice as far but takes twice as long to close.
Some tournaments will now feature a limit on the number of matches that can be played during an event session.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue which prevented players from receiving elimination rewards if a player they downed was eliminated by the Down-But-Not-Out timer ending or if their team was fully eliminated.

PERFORMANCE

Optimized spawning pickups when a player is eliminated.
Optimized the performance of the Dynamite fuse.
Switch audio performance improvements - falling sounds no longer hitch.
Minor Switch rendering optimizations to help general framerate.

AUDIO

Reduced the volume of bullet and pickaxe impact audio on the starting island.
Added a hit notification audio cue when a vehicle you’re riding in recieves damage.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that would cause in-air glider audio to continue playing when eliminating a gliding player.
Fixed an issue that would cause vehicle audio loops to get stuck on.
Fixed “crackling” audio heard on Mobile/Switch when shooting weapons or emoting.

UI

The Calamity, Dire, Ragnarok, and Drift Challenges have been moved to a new section at the bottom of the Challenges tab.
Added filtering and updated the layout of the Locker.
Vehicle Damage Numbers have been added!
Vehicles now have a unique damage number pop color and show damage numbers.
Polished the Store layout to support a larger number of tiles without needing to scroll.
Minor update to the player feedback UI to add reporting categories and a list of other players in the current or last-played match.

Bug Fixes

Fixed Battle Pass information from being displayed in the Lobby tab for players that have not purchased a Battle Pass.
Fixed the header entry in the daily Challenges screen to work correctly when clicked.
Moved the Nvidia Highlights button to the top right of the Battle Royale lobby to avoid conflicts with chat click zone.
Fixed an issue where the Two Factor Authentication screen could sometimes cause input to become unresponsive.
REPLAY

Bug Fixes

Nameplates will no longer sit above other HUD elements, such as the map.

CREATIVE

This is an early release so you may experience client crashes, loss of progress, or other unexpected errors.

OVERVIEW

Creative Hub provides access to your own island, the islands of other friends who have joined on the server, or featured islands selected from the community.
Player Islands are your creative space that automatically saves.
Players will be able to keep a server active for up to 4 hours at a time.
Battle Pass owners will start with 4 islands to allow for different creations. On December 13, all players will receive 4 islands.
Friends can visit your island and island owners can set permissions to determine if your friends can edit/build while visiting.
The My Island menu is accessible through the Main Menu in-game while on your island.

GAMEPLAY

Phone
This is the in-game tool your character holds that’s used to edit, copy, and manipulate props in the world. Experiment with its features to discover all the things it can do.
Fly mode allows players to quickly travel around their island and create in mid-air.
Double jump to start flying.
My Island menu
The “Game” tab starts and stops player-created games. When a game is stopped your island reverts to its pre-game state.
You may experience functionality issues with this feature as we continue to make improvements.
The “Game Settings” tab sets health, fall damage, spawn location, etc and can be changed at any time through the My Island menu.
The “Island Tools” tab resets your island back to its original state and sets who can build on your island.

CREATIVE INVENTORY

Accessed from the inventory menu.
Inventory allows you to spawn prefabs, devices, weapons, or consumables.
Use Inventory to create your own chests or llamas for your island filled with items you select.
Prefabs are pre-made structures the player can place on their island with throwables.
Devices are placeable items that allow you to create games.

PREFABS

8 obstacle courses
25 buildings from Battle Royale
34 galleries of building tiles and props

DEVICES

New Devices

Ice Block
Damage Rails
Speed Boost
Timer
Scoreboard
Player Spawn
From Battle Royale:
Spikes
Chiller
Bouncer
Launch Pad
Mounted Turret
Cozy Campfire

PERFORMANCE

The memory bar at the bottom of the HUD provides feedback on how much you can build on your island.
This will change as we gather more data on performance and memory usage.

SOCIAL

Players will have the ability to join in progress games with any of their Epic friends, even if they are not in a party together. Find your friend in the social panel and select Join Creative Server. Your friend must have their Privacy option set to Friends or Public to allow those who aren’t in a party to join.

REPLAY

Replays will record the entire 4-hour play session, however, these will be saved in 30-minute individual files.
Replays are off by default and can be enabled in the settings.