Fortnite Chapter 3 is live.
Credit: Epic Games
After five hours of inactivity, Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 4 is live. The servers are back up and running and players are diving in from the Battle Bus to see it on a map with some pretty significant changes.
Season 4 is called Paradise, which is an odd title for a season about a mysterious devouring substance called Chrome that takes place during Halloween. Here’s everything you need to know.
Chrome Paradise
We’ll start with the story trailer that introduces us to the strange new metallic liquid called Chrome that has begun devouring the map and the Seven, and introduces Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) as The Paradigm:
We’re also introduced to a mysterious red-haired villain known as The Herald at the end of the trailer:
A mysterious, but fabulous, villain.
Credit: Epic Games
Chrome will play a big role this season. You can turn yourself and structures into Chrome and walk through Chrome walls, which you can create into enemy structures to make them penetrable.
Chromed walls
Credit: Epic Games
Turning into Chrome makes you immune to fire and falling damage for a short time and when you sprint you’ll turn into a blob of Chrome. You can also air dash, which allows you to pass through walls (so you can pass through a Chrome wall if you’re not Chrome, and any other structure if you’re Chrome.
chromatized
Credit: Epic Games
New weapons + returning weapons
Two new weapons have been introduced in Season 4. Unsurprisingly, they’re both Chrome-based.
EvoChrome shotgun
EvoChrome shotgun
Credit: Epic Games
EvoChrome Burst Rifle
EvoChrome Burst Rifle
Credit: Epic Games
Return and non-return weapons:
- Side arm gun
- Prime shotgun
- Lever action shotgun
- Rapid Fire SMG
- Subgun deleted
- Ranger Assault Rifle
- Hammer Assault Rifle
- Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR)
- Hunter Bolt-Action Sniper
- Granada
- Jar of Luerca
- Harpoon gun
- Shadow Tracker (Exotic Weapon)
- The Dub (exotic weapon)
- Boom Sniper Rifle (Exotic Weapon)
- Boogie Bomb (not technically a weapon, but it looks like it)
- Shockwave Grenade (also technically not a weapon, but here it is)
Sniper rifles have also gotten a boost, making the long game much more viable this season:
- Hunter Bolt-Action Sniper: Increases damage and headshot multiplier
- Hunting Rifle: Increases damage and headshot multiplier
- Automatic Sniper Rifle: Increases damage and headshot multiplier
- Lever Action Rifle: Increases damage and headshot multiplier
- Sniper Rifle Removed: Damage increased
- Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle: Damage increased
- Rail Gun: Damage increased
- Bolt Action Sniper Rifle: Damage increased
- Heavy Sniper Rifle: Increases headshot multiplier
- Storm Scout Sniper Rifle: Increases headshot multiplier
- Boom Sniper Rifle: Increases explosive damage
Season 4 Battle Pass
Six new skins join the Season 4 Battle Pass and one “secret” skin. Read all about these and how to unlock them right here. The Battle Pass once again includes 100 tiers of content to unlock with Battle Stars, including gliders, sprays, emotes, spikes, and more.
New map + map changes
Condo Canyon has taken flight, becoming Cloudy Condos. You can use D-Launchers to get on the floating (or build) platforms.
Cloudy condos
Credit: Epic Games
The other big new point of interest is the Herald’s Shrine:
Saint of the Herald
Credit: Epic Games
Here’s what the new map looks like. You can see it’s become a bit autumnal and now we have four quite different biomes, with winter snow, green fields, a desert and the autumn biome.
Fortnite Season 4 Map
Credit: Epic Games
New elements have been added to the game such as the Chrome Splash, which can turn you or walls into Chrome. There are also now vaults that you can unlock with special keys found on the map in chests etc. Low security vaults require a key; High Security vaults require two and offer better loot. When you find a key, Vault locations are shown on the map. Gone are the days when Epic Games made this kind of thing a real challenge, unfortunately.
Epic Games has also added a new slide launch action, Season 4 challenges, and other gameplay and balance tweaks.
That’s about it! Good luck with your Victory Royales, young Padawans! See you in Paradise!
Original History
Fortnite Season 4 is almost here.
Credit: Epic Games
Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 3, has been around for almost the entire summer. In fact, the season began on June 5, two weeks before the summer solstice. It’s over, just a couple of days before the official start of fall.
We’ve had a few hints about the new season, which is called Paradise, though it appears to be a darkly tongue-in-cheek title. While Season 3’s Vibin moniker gave it fun summery vibes, Paradise is an odd setting for what looks to be a very creepy season.
A strange liquid chrome is present in each of the teaser images so far, and it looks like our heroes, and the map, might get sucked into the gooey, greasy stuff.
We will know more soon. The end of season 3 is almost here, and season 4 is just around the corner. Here’s what you need to know.
Season 3 officially ends on Sunday, September 18th at approximately 2am ET. It’s 11:00 PM on Saturday, September 17 if you’re on Pacific Time. This comes down to 6:00 UTC on Sunday the 18th.
From there, we can usually expect three to four hours of downtime depending on the update, and of course you’ll need to update your game after Epic Games does its server-side magic.
Season 4 will start right after the servers come back online, so you should be up and running early Sunday morning when you’re up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to grab some Victory Royales .
We’ll be covering the new Battle Pass, map changes, challenges, and anything else that comes up here at Forbes Games. I keep hoping Epic will bring back decent challenges and fun stuff like loading screens and battle stars or hidden coins, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.
Good luck out there, young Padawans. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook for more Fortnite Season 4 coverage.
Update #1
Here’s what we know about Chapter 3, Season 4 so far based on leaks, rumors, teasers, and official announcements from Epic Games.
The aspects of the Battle Pass
Gwen Stacy
We know for sure that there will be a Gwen Stacy Spider-Man skin that looks to have the awesome cel-shading animation used in the wonderful movie Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse (one of my favorite movies of Spidey of all time).
Gwen Stacy
Credit: Colombia Pictures
Goth Meowscles
We also know there’s a Goth Meowscles skin, perfect for Halloween, though the “muscles” in the cat’s name seems like a misnomer at this point. Goth Meowscles is not ripped in any sense of the word.
Goth Meowscles
Credit: Epic Games
A third skin with chrome hands could also be part of the Battle Pass, thanks to what we’ve seen in the teasers (though take that with a grain of salt, naturally).
Mystery Battle Pass skin
Credit: Epic Games
Finally, popular streamer SypherPK is also getting his own icon series skin, though he won’t be part of the Battle Pass. Also pictured in the new skin is a new scoped AR or tactical rifle of some sort, so expect that to be one of the new weapons in Chapter 4 Season 4.
Other changes we can expect are lots and lots of chrome on the map, including chrome tornadoes that might look more like monuments than moving weather events. We should also see a bunch of balloons floating around the map.
Patch 22.00
The new 22.00 patch will drop when the game goes live on Sunday, but at the time of writing we don’t know the exact size of the update on each platform. I’ll update this post when we know.
Live event
Unfortunately, there won’t be any live events to end Season 3 and start Season 4, which is definitely a huge shame. Fortnite’s live events are some of the best out there and a real highlight every season. Hopefully we’ll have a big live event to wrap up Season 4 in a few months.
Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4 is here!