Fortnite has launched its first main replace since final month’s devastating layoffs that left greater than 1,000 Epic Video games staffers out of labor. In the present day’s addition to battle royale gameplay is comedic but hearty, and lasts solely 24 hours.
In fact, at the moment is April Idiot’s Day. Fortnite is rising the enjoyable by including new weapons to the primary battle royale mode. The identical goes for our sister companies Reload and Blitz. The weapon is…a finger gun. Characters really deal harm to enemies just by making a finger gun gesture.
Additionally added is an enormous head for at the moment and solely at the moment, harking back to the look you typically unlocked utilizing cheat codes in basic video video games. Curiously, developer Epic Video games admits that they’d a tough time implementing the slender Bananaman Peely, and as an alternative has the Hug Crew Chief masks popped on high of him.
You possibly can stack a number of gamers ππ pic.twitter.com/y9NBJldpgV
β Hypex (@HYPEX) April 1, 2026
The April Fools’ addition continues with shoulder using. This can be a seemingly main mechanic that enables gamers to climb up and piggyback on one another. This permits your teammates to take a seat in your shoulder and shoot. We found that gamers can stack multiple participant at a time. How many individuals are you able to stack?
Lastly, fall harm has been eliminated (changed with a crash sound upon touchdown) and a rideable llama has been added that may be trotted round. Once more, it is all only for 24 hours.
That is the sort of replace that almost all different video games would roll out in a brief time frame, however we predict that is the Fortnite for you. On the lookout for some enjoyable? The entire above is accessible till tomorrow, April 2nd at precisely 5:30am ET.
Sweeney, who introduced the layoffs final month, mentioned Epic was reacting to a decline in curiosity in Fortnite beginning in 2025, however analysts instructed videogameaddicted {that a} decline within the variety of veteran battle royale gamers enjoying the sport is simply one of many points. The corporate has been engaged in expensive authorized battles with Apple and Google for years, funding the Epic Video games Retailer, which seeks to compete with Steam. After which there’s Roblox’s explosive development, and Fortnite is at present lagging behind it.
In the present day’s replace is a robust one, however some who stay on the firm say they do not know what Fortnite will appear to be past the second half of this yr, now that just about 1 / 4 of its staff have left.
Tom Phillips is videogameaddicted’s information editor. You possibly can contact Tom at tom_phillips@videogameaddicted.com or discover him on Bluesky. @tomphillipseg.bsky.social