The weather in Fortnite is about to get a whole lot worse - or better - depending on who's asked. Starting today, extreme weather conditions like lightning and tornadoes are forecasted to make landfall on the island, along with a few other unexpected surprises.
Epic Games' enduringly popular free-to-play battle royale title is now well into its second month of its inaugural Chapter 3 season. The latest season of Fortnite has seen a steady stream of new content, including new weapons, items, and a robust Winterfest. Fortnite most recently hosted its All Valley Cup, part of its crossover content with Cobra Kai.
Detailed in a blog post on the official Fortnite website, the 19.01 hotfix adds both tornadoes and lightning to the island, and look to significantly affect gameplay. The tornadoes appear to pick up everything, including players, making them an opportunistic escape strategy. Players can fly up and around the twister and launch away from it without taking fall damage. Dark clouds forming are indicative of lightning, but while getting struck does deal a small amount of damage and set the immediate area ablaze, it does grant the player a temporary speed boost.
Fortnite players looking to turn themselves into a lightning rod can hop into a body of water underneath the dark clouds, as well as reaching the highest elevation possible. While tornadoes were shown in the Fortnite Chapter 3 trailer last year, Epic had been radio silent on the new element until today. Detailed leaks about the tornadoes began circulating online a couple of weeks ago, with one fan claiming granular details like a 25-second formation time, eight-minute duration time, and that there are varying levels of intensity, although those statistics haven't been confirmed.
In addition to the tornadoes and lightning, the Flare Gun returns to Fortnite from the vault. Introduced way back in update 13.20, Fortnite's Flare Gun acts as a fiery compliment to the fan-favorite Firefly Jars, in that it sets any structures it comes into contact with on fire, only with greater range and accuracy. The weapon also marks nearby players upon explosion, which may come in handy when tracking down a tornado escapee. Between the Flare Gun, Firefly Jar, and now lightning, Fortnite could certainly use some fire extinguishers.
To really make sure players experience the new tornadoes, Fortnite is also kicking off Tornado Week, which is causing a higher spawn rate of twisters until January 17 9am ET. Between the constant crossovers, content updates, and now extreme weather, it's easy to see just how insane a game Fortnite has become.
Fortnite is free-to-play for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.