Fortnite’s latest content update is out right on schedule. This week’s release finally brings the much-anticipated Air Strike item fans have been waiting for — and it doesn’t disappoint.
The device looks like a largely inoffensive canister of smoke when you first pick it up. But throw it at an opponent and they’ll soon find themselves being bombarded by missiles from above.
Today’s content update is the third for Fortnite version 9.30. It’s another small release to keep the game feeling fresh as Epic Games employees return from their two-week vacation.
You shouldn’t expect to see any major changes in Battle Royale, then. There isn’t so much as a bug fix in this release. But there are a few things to look forward to.
It’s raining missiles!
The biggest addition this week is the new Air Strike item. It leaked out several weeks ago but we weren’t certain what to expect from it. Now it’s here and it looks like it’s going to stir things up a lot.
The Air Strike item you’ll pick up in Battle Royale matches is essentially a market. You’ll see a stream of red smoke come out of it when you throw it, and for a few seconds, nothing will happen.
But once the canister has come to rest, it won’t be long before a flurry of missiles rains down from above. There are 20 in total, and each one does 75 damage to players and 200 to structures.
Is the Air Strike over-powered?
The Air Strike seems incredibly over-powered — like one of those weapons everyone grows to hate. And it can be. But there are some caveats that might mean it sometimes does very little at all.
Although the Air Strike will spawn 20 missiles, each one lands in random spots within a 9-meter radius of the Air Strike canister. What’s more, the blast radius of each missile is just 3.5 meters.
There’s no guarantee that those missiles will hit anyone at all, then. Sometimes they might wipe out entire squads, but other times they might only slightly injure one opponent.
Other limitations designed to prevent the Air Strike from being too powerful is that they’re legendary items, which means they’re hard to find, and you can only carry two in each inventory slot.
What else is new?
We’ll have to wait and see how much of an impact the Air Strike has in Battle Royale matches before we can definitively decide whether or not it should keep its place in the game.
The only other change in this content update is for players on Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS, where the Team Rumble mode now requires just 50 eliminations for a win, as opposed to 150.
That’s a massive reduction that will make Team Rumble games significantly quicker, but we’re not really sure of the reasoning behind it. A lot of players won’t be happy with this change.
