'Fortnite' Season 5 Adds New Locations, ATK Vehicle And Rifts

“Fortnite” season 5 is here and it adds a bunch of new skins, locations and a new vehicle. The new season of “Fortnite” also adds Rifts to the map that allows players to instantly teleport to a random location in battle royale.

At the end of season 4, Epic Games launched the rocket in “Fortnite” and it created a crack on the sky over the battle royale map. In season 5, the crack adds two new locations on the map: Paradise Palms and Lazy Links. Epic Games has also added desert outposts and a desert biome, viking ships and ancient statues onto the map, which may have fallen through the crack in the sky. Fans can check out Epic Games' full patch notes for season 5 online.

“Fortnite” season 5 also adds a new vehicle that will allow players to travel through the battle royale map faster. The new vehicle is called the All Terrain Kart (ATK) golf cart. The ATK has enough room for the player’s entire squad, which should make it easier for squad players to outrun the shrinking storm together, or maneuver through the map and strategize a new plan of attack.

The roof of the ATK also functions as a bounce pad. Squads will also be able to jump the ATK over obstacles. The height of the jump will depend on how well players are able to lean back and release at the same time. The ATK can also get a temporary speed boost when players realize a successful drift.

The biggest change pertains to the new Rifts that are scattered all throughout the “Fortnite” battle royale map. Epic Games says that Rifts will instantly take players to a random location when they step into them. It remains unclear how exactly this will work, but it’s possible that players will be sucked into a Rift and be teleported to a different location. Polygon speculates that it might even transport players to an entirely different map.

In addition to these new features, “Fortnite” season 5 comes with a number of tweaks and fixes for the battle royale gameplay. The center of the 7th, 8th and 9th Storm circles can now shift in random directions instead of just simply shrinking. This should make it a little bit more challenging for players who prefer to camp as the Storm closes in. The very first Storm circle will also consistently do 1 damage regardless of how long the player has been stuck in the Storm.

“Fortnite” season 5 also adds indicators on how many pellets hit when players are using shotguns. This should provide players with more information on why their point blank hits are only registering small damages. The heavy shotgun now fires 10 pellets instead of 5, but the maximum damage of the weapon has been unchanged. Epic Games has also made it a bit more difficult to “double pump” in season 5. There will now be a delay when players switch from firing one shotgun to another.

Another change is how players are able to earn extra XP when playing big team modes. “Fortnite” players will now earn XP when they revive their teammates in 50vs50 and Teams of 20 matches, according to Engadget. For the Nintendo Switch, Epic games has also included motion controls which can be adjusted in the Settings menu.