Fortnite’s latest patch is late – 5.2’s release notes news

Traditionally, Tuesday is the day that Epic Games releases new patches and updates for Fortnite, but this week, it was curiously late. It appears that without a particular explanation, Epic Games has delayed the release of their latest patch. Usually Fortnite gives a 12-hour notice on incoming new releases, but it was curiously absent this week.

So what was in the update?

Well, the biggest change is definitely the new weapon that has been added – the Heavy Sniper Rifle. The name is fairly self-explanatory. It does a LOT of damage, especially to structures, but takes a long time to reload.

The new weapon is available Epic and Legendary versions, however to balance out the high fire power, the ammo for the weapon drops less than for other sniper guns. Whether that will be enough to balance the weapon remains to be seen, as some of the other weapons are still struggling to fit into the Fortnite meta.

There are also two new Limited Time Modes: The already familiar Sniper Shoot-out that has players doing battle with sniper rifles – the only difference from previous versions of the mode is that the new Heavy Sniper has replaced the Scoped Assault Rifle here.

©Epic Games

The other new mode is called ‘Soaring 50s’. It’s an alternative version of the previous 50v50 mode – easily one of the most popular game modes that Fortnite offers. It focuses more on mobility by allowing Gliders to be re-deployed and by adding a lot of extra Bounce Pads on the map.

Save the World

As for Save the World, a new set of weekly Horde Challenges and a new hero are joining – of course, a new batch of challenges for week 6 of Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode were released as well.

The Free challenges this week are: Deal headshot damage to opponents (500 points of damage for 5 Battle Stars). Harvest building resources with a pickaxe (3000 resources for 5 Battle Stars). Search where the Stone Heads are looking (1 spot for 10 Battle Stars). The latter is this week’s treasure map challenge.

As for the Battle Pass challenges: Search chests in Lonely Lodge (7 chests for 5 Battle Stars). Complete timed trials (5 trials for 5 Battle Stars). Minigun or Light Machine Gun eliminations (2 kills for 10 Battle Stars). Eliminate opponents in Tilted Towers (3 for 10 Battle Stars).

The timed trials are of course the new thing here: There are six of them all over the map, but you’ll only need to complete five of them to get the Battle Stars. If you’re wondering how it works – you need to collect a certain amount of timer symbols in one location before the allotted time runs out. There are guides online for this, but the easiest way to go about it would be with a bit of good old trial and error.