It is amazing how much content Epic games manages to push into Fortnite every single week. The game has something new to brag about every single time you log into your account. The weekly update cycle has really helped the game in staying fresh and appealing to the players. Thus, even after almost 2 years of release, the game is still consistently the most played game in the world and on twitch. Further expanding upon this already impressive portfolio of game-changing updates, Epic games has dropped yet another major game mode for the players.
Air Royale
The new game mode comes in the form of an airplane Battle Royale mode called Air Royale. As the name suggests, it is battle royale, but with planes. Epic Games described it as: “Pilot the X-4 Stormwing in this Limited-Time Mode as you fight to become the last plane flying! Complete free Challenges to unlock brand new Wraps as you rule the skies.” Air Royale is a fast-paced mode where 100 players enter and fight to be the last one flying.
How does it work?
The game mode is restricted to only the Duos mode and there are no plans to change that as of yet. Each player comes with a plane and gets 3 lives. Every time you lose a life, you respawn. However, touching the ground results in instant elimination. You cannot cheese the game and park your plane either because that would make it explode. Players would also be able to hijack other planes in order to increase the lives of their own planes. As it is a flying game mode, the storm has been changed accordingly. It now has a ceiling that slowly drops down restricting air space as the game goes on. So, be sure to not fly too high during the closing stages of the match.
As far as loot is concerned, since you’d be flying all the time, that has changed as well. In Air Royale, loot chests will now drop from the sky. The chests have different rarities and will enhance the airplanes. These enhancements can range from weapon upgrades to short bursts of boosts. The chests containing gear you already have will drop ammo for you. In addition to that, to make things simpler, better loot will replace your current gear automatically. In order to claim a chest, players simply have to fly through it. Other than the chests, players will also be able to repair the planes or add shields using repair kits that can be found floating through the map.
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Food Fight: Deep Fried
Hiding behind the main attraction of Air Royale, another limited time mode was also added to the game. Called Deep Fried, this LTM is basically a spin on an old mode called Food Fight. Deep Fried features two teams on the opposite sides of the map with a massive barrier in the middle to separate them. As time passes, lava rises up from below gradually. So, the teams have to build a fort in order to protect their restaurant mascot. Eventually, the barrier goes down starting a full-fledged fight where both teams have to destroy each other’s mascot and eliminate the rest of the team to win the match.
The mode sounds pretty wacky and if it is anything like the older Food Fight mode, it’s going to be a lot of fun. The barrier between the players is impassable and the lava starts to rise after some time giving players the chance to plan their approach. Each team has a restaurant block with a mascot inside it and basically, you have to build the fort around the mascot for protection. The destruction of the mascot results in that team losing the ability to respawn. As the mode is heavily focused on buildings, players will get more resources from farming and will randomly get resources for free as well. The restaurants in Deep Fried are also much higher than the older game mode.
New Weapons and Mechanics
Along with the two game modes, Epic has also added a bunch of new gameplay mechanics and weapons. One of these weapons is an old fan favourite that makes a return, the Egg Launcher. It is the egg-themed grenade launcher skin. While it technically isn’t a new weapon and is just a grenade launcher, it is still fun to just launch some eggs out of a crazy egg launcher. The Epic and Legendary variants for the Infantry rifle have also been added. They deal 42 and 44 damage respectively and use Medium ammo. The Infantry rifle can be found in chests, supply drops, vending machines and on the floor.
Epic has also introduced an extremely important and significant mind-blowing mechanic that would make everyone very happy. Yes, you can finally pet the dog now in Fortnite. Wait there’s more; the petting is not limited to the dog. You can actually pet all the other pets too! What a wholesome and amazing feature that every game should most definitely have. Other than that the Battle Pass Friend XP bonus has also been upgraded. So, you get more XP now even if you play with a lower number of friends. The update 8.40 also brought some usual bug fixes with it. You can see the full patch-notes for the update right here.