With Fortnite's ever changing landscape, another new weapon has made an explosive enternace to the battle royale game. The new gun is called the 'Proximity Grenade Launcher' and comes along with a new patch update v9.21.
There are lots of competitions in progress with the recent revival of 'Friday Fortnite' and the ongoing World Cup qualifiers. Will this new weapon have a devastating effect on the competitive side like we have seen in the past?
Fortnite's History With New Weapons
Epic Games has been no stranger in adding interesting weapons to their flagship game in Fortnite, with the removal of the longtime favorite pump shotgun. Most will remember them adding the combat shotgun, which over time has grown on players, however it was widely considered a massive downgrade to the pump.
Hallfway through Season 8, they introduced the Bow; this was nerfed and has been one of the least popular competitive weapons in the current gun pool. From a mixed damage radius and its one trick pony usage, professional players have favored the RPG or Grenade Launcher for their choice of a 'splode weapon'.
Proximity Grenade Launcher
Unsurprisingly, Epic Games has released a new 'splode weapon', originally leaked by data miners, in the most recent patch they will be introducing the Proximity Grenade Launcher. First shown on the in-game news tab, the Proximity Grenade Launcher is detailed as “It’s not a horseshoe or a hand grenade, but close still counts!”.
"It's not a horseshoe or a hand grenade, but close still counts!"
The description of this weapon seems very interesting at first glance. When first discovered by data miners last week, they found that the new launcher would come in two variants; Epic and Legendary. They also managed to mine the statistics of the new weapon.
Stat comparison between the epic and legendary variants
This new weapon fires an arcing, bouncing, explosive projectile that explodes when in proximity of an opponent and can be found in chests, loot carriers, supply drops and vending machines. It's a semi-automatic weapon that holds up to two explosive rounds.
With only a three damage difference in the two variants with the max damage output at 70, it will be interesting to see how this new weapon fairs in the current meta. It is easy to predict that the regular Grenade Launcher will be vaulted in the next patch, but Epic Games has proven its unpredictability in the past so we should be ready for anything.
Patch v9.21 Details
This new weapon rolls out with a new patch, the details of which can be found here. This patch mainly focuses on increasing the availability of certain items:
- Shield potion availability has increased from chest loot to 12.09% and small shield potion availability from chest loot has increased to 18.13%
- Shotgun availability has increased from floor loot to 9.77%
- Infantry Rifle epic and legendary variant availability has increased from floor loot to .105% and from chest loot to .645%
- Heavy Assault Rifle common variant availability has decreased from floor loot to 1.715% and from chest loot to 10.46%
- Mounted Turret has decreased availability from floor loot to .46%
The Storm Flip has also been adjusted to cause flat damage instead of being based on which Storm Phase is currently active, this will do 5 damage every second. It has also had it's availability reduced from chests to 1.69% and floor loot to 1.66%. The Storm Flip has also been re-added to arena and tournament playlists.
Fortnite's 'Storm Flip' Weapon Had A Mixed Debut
New Game Modes - 'One Shot Duos' & 'Horde Rush'
A new patch, a new weapon...what more could we ask for? TWO NEW MODES!
One Shot Duos
A low gravity gamemode, where every player has 50 health, featuring sniper weapons and bandages only.
Horde Rush
In this mode you play alongside your teammates to rack up your score by finding hidden score multipliers, opening special loot chest and eliminating as many monsters as you can. You will travel across the map, survive all of the defend locations and take down the final boss!
Fortnite's 'Horde Rush'
How do you think this new weapon will affect the current meta? Tweet us!
Written ByNick Farrell@NickFarrell91