'Fortnite' Update 3.1.0 (1.45) Adds Hunting Rifle & New Map Section

Fortnite update 3.1.0, or 1.45 on PS4, has officially gone live. As promised, the patch adds the Hunting Rifle and a seasonal point of interest to Battle Royale. On the Save The World side, an Auto-Shotgun and Taylor Swift-inspired Defender highlight the list of changes.

Read the full patch notes below.

OVERALL NEW FEATURES

• Controllers and mice work at the same time on PC.

BATTLE ROYALE NEW FEATURES

• Hunting Rifle: It's single shot, has no scope and is most effective at medium to long range. It has Uncommon and Rare rarity tiers and can be found in Treasure Chests and Floor Loot.
• Lucky Landing point of interest is located on the southern edge of the island.

SAVE THE WORLD NEW FEATURES

• Spring It On "Brave Beginnings" questline added: Join Val on her mission to battle the storm as a Defender.
• Group missions added to all theaters: four extra Defenders can be used and rewards should be roughly doubled with the exception of seasonal gold.
• Impulse Grenade added
• Dragonfire Shotgun in Weekly Store: Heavy Auto-Shotgun with slow fire rate and small magazine
• Voting added to BluGlo Difficulty: Two yes votes are required to increase difficulty for duos and trios, four-person squads need three yes votes. If a vote fails, there's a 45-second cooldown timer.

Hero Reworks

• IFF Coding Perk: Plasma Pulse kills cause the Constructor's shield to regenerate at 15 percent of its normal rate for two seconds. Consecutive Plasma Pulse kills refresh the duration.
• Soldier's Berserker Subclass: In a Pinch has been removed as the level-12 perk and replaced with Up Close and Personal. Kneecapper has replaced Up Close and Personal as the Berserker's level-30 perk. Warcry applies three stacks of Debilitating Shots to nearby enemies when using Up Close.

GENERAL BUG FIXES AND TWEAKS

• Notification UI has updated animations and now promptly exits the screen when dismissed by an action
• Added a confirmation dialog for exiting the game using the window close button on PC
• Ping times displayed in the Net Debug Stats panel have been improved to be more accurate by removing frame times from the calculation.
• Removed some heavy hitching that could occur during texture streaming
• Fixed issue that caused location text in Party Finder to clip into buttons, now marquees properly
• Fixed issue where the input icon for selecting a lobby player podium slot would disappear after switching tabs

BATTLE ROYALE BUG FIXES AND TWEAKS

Weapons & Items

• Burst Assault Rifle Drop Chance: Common decreased by 20 percent, Uncommon Increased by 60 percent and Rare increased by 150 percent.
• Revolver Drop Chance: Common increased by 10 percent, Uncommon increased by 33 percent and Rare increased by 75 percent
• Tactical Shotgun Drop Chance: Uncommon decreased by 10 percent, Rare Increased by 33 percent and Epic increased by 75 percent.
• Fixed discrepancies between crosshair location and muzzle firing location when shooting at close range targets
• Fixed shotgun collision inconsistencies when aiming through openings or around corners

Gameplay

• Shooby Shores Loot Tweaks: 13 Floor Loot locations removed and four chests removed
• Industrial Plot: Removed four Floor Loot spawns and three chests
• Tilted Towers: Removed eight Floor Loot spawns and four chests
• Fixed issues where weapons would not equip because they were not pre-loaded
• Efforts have been made to address an issue where players are suddenly unable to build in rare cases.
• Fixed a crash that occurred if players kicked the ball out of Greasy Grove or the Soccer Stadium.
• Fixed some edge cases where players pushed up against ramps / ceilings could toss grenades through to the opposite side
• Fixed the Boogie Bomb not properly refreshing its duration on a player who is hit with more than one
• Fixed an issue that reduced the distance that the light on chests could be seen
• Fixed the soccer scoreboard awarding points to the wrong side in Pleasant Park

UI

• You now receive Party Suggestions while in the lobby.
• Rich presence now provides the player's party size.
• Added new intro/outro animations to the party invite notification
• Invite notification now closes upon being clicked.
• Presence text that is too long will no longer overlap the Invite/Join buttons.
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't emote in lobby if a player left
• Fixed an issue where changing language to Chinese or Korean would not render text properly
• Fixed an issue that caused the 60 FPS mode to reset back to 30 after relaunching the game on PS4
• Fixed an issue where the Party Finder dialog could double spawn
• Fixed an issue where full parties would show as solo players and appear joinable
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the Invite/Join action wouldn't show correctly
• Fixed an issue where the party bar sometimes wouldn't show party members while in a filled squad

Animation

• Re-enabled sprinting dust effects on low settings
• Hip fire positioning is now maintained if a player fired recently and switched weapons.
• Fixed player jittering when sliding against a surface
• Fixed an issue causing other characters to not animate while spectating them after being eliminated
• Fixed an issue where weapons were unholstered early when using Emotes
• Fixed character body parts not animating at low framerates
• Fixed shield visual FX not properly displaying on the Alpine Ace and Crackshot outfits
• Updated the flag on the arm of the USA Alpine Ace to face the correct direction

Audio

• Reduced the volume of the Hand Cannon audio to match that of the Revolver
• Reduced the volume of the Windmills found in Anarchy Acres and Fatal Fields
• Set the volume of hitting weak points back to what it was prior to V.3.0.0
• Fixed an issue where building placement sound would play repeatedly while skydiving if you had the Pickaxe equipped in the lobby
• Fixed an issue that caused the lobby music to restart every time it was attenuated to 0 volume because of music from emotes
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Storm Audio to play from an invalid location in the map
• The build mode click sound no longer plays while the player is downed.

Performance

• Improved overall frame rate by using less CPU for characters that are far away
• Optimized weapon load times and reduced their memory usage

SAVE THE WORLD TWEAKS AND BUG FIXES

General

• Training Manuals, Trap Designs and Weapon Designs used to evolve a schematic or person are now refunded when they are recycled/retired.
• Changed Crit Damage versus Afflicted targets weapon modifier from 30 percent/45 percent/60 percent to 45 percent/67.5 percent/90 percent
• Dragon Rocket Launcher no longer roll magazine size perks.
• Rocket/Grenade Launchers will no longer roll headshot perks. They are also now able to roll rare durability perks.
• Wooden Wall Spike Traps have had their Reload Speed perks removed and replaced with valid perks.
• Wall and Floor Launcher Traps have had their Damage, Critical Chance and Critical Damage perks removed and replaced with valid perks.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to damage Lars' van during the timed encounters
• Fixed small boxes of fireworks that drop red envelopes from being destroyed by Husky Propane Tank
• Disable Play Now button for "Want to Build a Hoverboard?" Quest since the Quest is fairly dependent on players traveling to the right zone type (i.e., City zones)
• We have temporarily disabled the Difficulty Pylon in Deliver the Bomb missions to address issues with blocking track placement.
• Players that play in maps much lower than their current level will have their party stats clamped. We will continue rebalancing stat clamping to make sure parties of mixed levels find the content appropriately challenging.

Heroes

• Removed kill reset timer in Fragment Generation perk and changed tooltips to represent the change
• Fragment Generation perk kill counter no longer resets after 15 seconds.
• Phase Shift now continues some of its momentum when used in the air.
• Goin' Commando!!!''s base damage has been increased from 13 to 25 damage.
• Crescent Kick can now be used in the air.
• Renamed Raider Nomad to Raider Raptor
• Dragon Daze tactical perk now properly shows visual FX when triggered.
• Fixed an issue that allowed survivors to be carried with Constructors Bull Rush ability
• Fixed pitch angle for TEDDY's arm guns when aiming at enemies
• Fixed an issue where the pickaxe would become unresponsive if players requeued actions mid swing
• Fixed an issue that caused the Soldier's Shockwave damage to be delayed
• The Outlander's Shock Tower now correctly displays its lightning visual FX when attacking.

UI

• Can cycle through survivor squads without backing out
• Can clear out all members in a survivor squad from a single action
• Added keybinds to pop-up context menus

Audio

• Fixed audio volumes of mission rewards music
• Removed music event from Supply Drop
• Fixed the issue with music abruptly switching and sounding too loud
• Fixed dialog attenuating sound FX and also not being played through the Voice slider
• Fixed the loud music transition to mission rewards
• Fixed the bonus success music event so that the high frequencies are less pronounced
• Fixed the combat/score music periodically starting/stopping
• Fixed the loot tab restarting the music every time you switched to it
• Fixed the loot tab music getting stuck on

Curiously, the promised first phase of Fortnite's Stamina Rework, which partially unlinks ability use and character movement from a single mechanic, isn't part of 3.1.0 is. We assume this adjustment will arrive soon alongside the Battle Royale Jetpack that was delayed earlier in the week.

The changes listed here aren't quite as significant as last week's 3.0.0 update, but there's still enough content for Battle Royale and Save The World enthusiasts to enjoy. With access to new weapons on both sides of the game, the multiplayer meta has the potential to evolve in considerable ways.

In addition to this free update, don't forget to sign up for Twitch Prime to score even more extra goodies and exclusive loot. Service on the website has been hit or miss over the past 24 hours, but we've got a guide to help you through the whole process.

Fortnite is in early access across PS4, Xbox One and PC. The 3.1.0 update is available on all platforms, but it's listed as 1.45 on PS4.

What do you think of Fortnite's 3.1.0 update? Will the Hunting Rifle make Battle Royale better? Tell us in the comments section!