Fortnite: Battle Royale

Starting a Match

Upon loading into a Battle Royale match, players will spawn on the Spawn Island, where they will wait until the lobby is large enough for the game to be started. When roughly 100 players have loaded in, or a certain amount of time passes (if the player threshold is unlikely to be met), a countdown for the Battle Bus' launch will begin.

After this timer ends, all players will be teleported into the Battle Bus, where they can jump out of the bus and skydive towards a location. While skydiving from the Battle Bus, the player's selected Moment will play.

Locations

Upon jumping out of the Battle Bus, players will have a choice of which location to skydive towards. Each location contains Chests and Ammo Boxes that the player can loot to obtain items. Each location has its own unique layout, with some containing things like Bosses, Guards, Wildlife, or Vending Machines. Some locations are named on the map, while some, known as Landmarks, are not; Named Locations are often larger and contain more loot. If a player has not yet visited a Named Location, it will appear grey on the minimap as the player has not yet 'discovered' it.

Eliminating Opponents

In order to progress through a Battle Royale match, players are required to eliminate opponents that are not on their team; the player's teammates show their usernames or a white indicator above their head, whereas enemy players do not. Opponents are eliminated when enough damage is dealt to them so that their health reaches zero. All players spawn with 100 Health and 0 Shields (additional health); players can increase their health and shields using Consumables.

In Solo, when a player's health is depleted, they are immediately removed from the match, however in team-based gamemodes, the player will be knocked, unable to deal any damage to their opponents, so that their team can revive them. After 50 seconds, or if the knocked player receives 100 additional damage, the player will be eliminated and their Reboot Card will be dropped.

Weapons and Items

All players will spawn with their Pickaxe, capable of doing small amounts of close-range melee damage, however players will need to quickly find ranged and stronger weapons from chests so that they can defend themselves against other players. Chests can also drop utility, damage, and healing items, which can assist the player in things such as mobility and stealth. There are 7 rarities of weapons and items, with each consecutive rarity of weapon having better stats than the previous rarity. The same weapon often comes in multiple rarities, whereas items often only have one rarity each. Below is an ordered list of rarities, and how items from each one are obtained:

• Common items are often found on the ground, and are also often dropped when eliminating Characters. These are the weakest items, often dealing the lowest amount of damage and having the longest reload time.
• Uncommon items are often found from chests. Uncommon weapons are slightly better than common weapons, often dealing slightly more damage and having a slightly shorter reload time.
• Rare items are found from chests, although less often than uncommon weapons. Rare items are also often commonly found in special types of chests, such as Faction Chests. Rare weapons also improve upon their uncommon variant's damage and reload time, although some weapons, such as the Hand Cannon, do not have rarities lower than Rare.
• Epic items are often found from Rare Chests, which have a small chance to spawn in the place of a regular chest. Epic weapons are stronger than Rare weapons, sometimes having additional stat changes (such as the magazine size of the Rapid Fire SMG).
• Legendary items are the strongest weapons that can be found in Rare Chests and Chests. Legendary weapons typically deal more damage and have a shorter firerate than the weapon's Epic counterpart.
• Mythic items are special items that are not usually obtained from Chests or Rare Chests. Instead, these variants are often obtained from either eliminating bosses (for example, eliminating Midas will cause him to drop Midas' Drum Gun) or completing special objectives (such as capturing Loot Island). Unlike the previous rarities, most Mythic weapons do not share the same name as their lower-rarity counterparts, instead Mythics often gain a prefix of either "Enhanced" (eg Enhanced Drum Shotgun) or the name of the boss that dropped the weapon (eg Midas' Drum Gun), and some Mythics have a new name entirely (eg Meowscle's Peow Peow Rifle, which is the Mythic variant of the Heavy Assault Rifle). Mythic weapons often have increased stats from their Legendary counterparts, however additional stats (such as fire rate, magazine size, etc) may be also modified.
• Exotic items are also special items that are often obtained from either completing special objectives or by purchasing them from a Character. Each Exotic item and weapon builds upon a weapon from a lower rarity and adds a special ability to them. For example, the Heisted Accelerant Shotgun causes you to gain a speed increase every time you shoot. Unlike the previous rarities, Exotic weapons usually have an entirely different name to their lower-rarity counterparts (eg the Suppressed Pistol becomes the Shadow Tracker). Exotic weapons also often have a different icon and design compared to their base versions.

Building

In Battle Royale, building is normally enabled. Players can use their Pickaxe to gather either Wood, Stone, or Metal. These materials can be used to build structures using walls, floors, stairs, and roofs. Wood is the weakest material, but the fastest to build and easiest to obtain, whereas Metal is the strongest material but the slowest to build and hardest to obtain. Player-built structures can be edited before and after being placed to include a door, window, railing, etc. Enemy-built structures cannot be edited by people who aren't on their team, so the player must break their structures, either by shooting them or using their pickaxe, instead.

Characters

Throughout the Battle Royale map, players can find various Characters, with each one indicated by a Speech Bubble above their head and on the minimap. Players can talk to a character to purchase various goods and services in exchange for some of the player's Bars (which are earned through eliminations and searching chests and save between matches). Some characters can also be hired and join your team as an additional teammate.

Characters are neutral, meaning that they are passive unless attacked; if a character has been provoked, a red exclamation mark will be displayed above their head in place of the speech bubble, and they will attack any players or NPCs that are threatening it. A character will return to being passive when either the threat or character has been eliminated or the threat is no longer within range of the character. While a character is provoked, players cannot interact with it to purchase services and goods.

The Storm

The Storm is a gameplay mechanic that is designed to keep players close together; each Battle Royale match has a safe zone, indicated by a large circle on the map, which slowly shrinks during the game. Players must stay in the safe zone to avoid taking damage from The Storm. For the first minute of a match, there is no safe zone as the storm has not yet formed, however after 1 minute, the storm will form and the first safe zone will be marked on the map. After the safe zone appears, players will have a short amount of time to make their way into the next zone before the storm closes in on the zone. After the storm has finished shrinking, the next zone will appear, smaller than the previous one. The process of the safe zone being revealed, the storm shrinking, and then another safe zone being revealed is called a Storm Phase, and there are 12 per game unless the game ends before the final phase. With each phase, the DPS (damage per second) of the storm may increase. The Storm directly damages the player's health, ignoring their shields.

During some of the later phases, a safe zone can form inside of the storm, forcing players to move with the storm into the new safe zone. On the 12th phase, the storm will close so that there is no safe zone remaining, causing all players to take storm damage for the remainder of the match.

Victory Royale

Once the last team or player remains, the remaining player(s) will win the match and will receive a Victory Royale, alongside a Victory Crown for their next match. Having a victory crown means that a player will gain more XP for certain actions, in exchange for having a short audio prompt that plays with each Storm Phase. If a player wins while in possession of a Crown, they will receive a Crowned Victory Royale. First-time Crowned victors receive the Crowning Achievement emote, which showcases the amount of Crowned Victory Royales the player has. Crowned Victory Royales reset each season.

Ranked and Tournaments

Ranked and Tournaments are the competitive modes of Battle Royale. These modes allow Battle Royale to become an eSport. In Ranked, players climb the ranks to allow participation in tournaments. Tournaments can award players cash prizes or free cosmetic items. Tournaments have different loot pools and some mechanics disabled to maintain competitive integrity. The premier tournament is the Fortnite Champion Series, or FNCS.

Limited Time Modes (LTMs)

Game modes that deviate from the standard ruleset of Battle Royale are called Limited Time Modes. These are considered separate playlists, and the modified rulesets either change the loot pool or even how the entire game is played out. Examples of an LTM are Solid Gold, Floor Is Lava and 50v50.

Seasons

About four times a year, major content updates are released, called Seasons. Each season brings its own unique theme, changing the map, loot pool, and even adding new features. Each season also comes with its own unique Battle Pass which is a gallery of many rewards pages. There is a Free Pass that does not require V-Bucks, but in order to obtain the main rewards of the Battle Pass, it must be purchased with 800 V-Bucks. Each season is usually concluded with a Live Event.