Epic Games has released update 4.5 for Fortnite. Today's update brings the long-awaited Playground Limited Time Mode along with a few surprises for Battle Royale. Meanwhile, Save the World, the game's PvE mode has also received some new content.

The highlight of today's update is the arrival of Playground LTM. This is a "low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild." Essentially, it's a practice mode - an open space for you to practice building structures, using various weapons and attempting strategies you would not normally do in a normal match of Battle Royale. The Final Fight Teams of 12 LTM mode is also available and detailed below.



One of the weapons you can practice with is the new Dual Pistols, which were also added today. "Experience two times the fun and firepower with Dual Pistols, the newest weapon introduced to Battle Royale," Epic teases. Dual Pistols are available in both Epic and Legendary variants and do 41-43 base damage. You are able to shoot both pistols with one pull of the trigger and they do not use first shot accuracy. Dual Pistols consume Medium Ammo and can be found from floor loot, chests, and Supply Drops.

Additionally, SMGs - Tactical and Silenced - have also received a little buff today, while Shotgun damage to structures has been reduced on all variants. You can find the specifics in the patch notes below. Lastly, in celebration of the 4th of July next week, the Grenade Launcher has been temporarily replaced with the Fireworks Launcher - a seasonal item that has firework explosions (a cosmetic change only).

Speaking of cosmetic changes, visual indicators are now shown in-game wherever a friendly teammate's map marker is placed. It will look like the image above.



As for Save the World, the Blockbuster Event is coming to an end with the arrival of Part 4 today. The Pro Builder controller layout is also now available in this mode. 

Full patch notes for today's Fortnite update 4.5 can be found below:

GENERAL

• Celebrate summer with the Fireworks Launcher, which has been added as a seasonal item that has firework explosions and replaces the Grenade Launcher for a limited time. (cosmetic change only).
• Blocks that are removed while in edit mode are now opaque rather than clear. Blue, white, and red colors still indicate build status.
  • Adjusted to limit player's ability to peek through structures while editing.
• Save the World and Battle Royale keybindings are now separated. Settings in one mode will not affect the settings of the other.
• Changed the button that lets you re-roll one daily quest or challenge from 'Abandon Quest' to 'Replace Quest', to make the behavior more obvious.

BATTLE ROYALE

LIMITED TIME MODES

PLAYGROUND 

Summary
Playground is a low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild. Build massive structures. Practice with the weapons and items. Fight against your friends. Have fun!

Mode Details

• You’ll have one hour to create, play and train as you wish. Hop in and try out version 1 of Playground!
• Drop into the Battle Royale map with a squad of friends for an hour
• Friendly Fire is on 
• Players respawn on death unless killed by the storm
• The storm doesn't start closing in for 55m, and takes 5 minutes to close in
• Resources gathered grant 10x the normal rate.
• 100 Llamas will be spawned on the map
• Chests & Ammo Boxes spawn 100% of the time

FINAL FIGHT TEAMS OF 12 

Summary
Make it to the final circle and then fight for the Victory Royale!

Mode Details

• Final Fight plays similar to standard Battle Royale, but instead of the storm circles closing all the way in, they stop part way through the match. 
• When the circles have finished closing in, the Final Countdown timer will begin.
• The remaining teams will battle it out until the timer expires.
• The team with the most players remaining at the end of the timer wins!
• In the event of a tie, the two (or more) teams tied for the lead win the match.

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• Dual Pistols Added
  • Available in Epic and Legendary variants.
    • 41-43 base damage.
  • Uses Medium Ammo.
  • Shoots both pistols with one pull of the trigger.
  • Can be found from floor loot, chests, and Supply Drops.
  • Does not use first shot accuracy.
• Significant jumps that are landed with the Shopping Cart now appear in the elimination feed (height, distance, and time).
• Weapon damage to structures now correctly scales with rarity.
• Shotgun damage to structures has been reduced by 50% for Pump Shotgun, and 25% for both Tactical Shotgun and Heavy Shotgun.
• Explosions now damage all structures within range, whether or not they are visible from the explosion center.
• We’re making the following changes to further solidify the identities and strengths of Tactical and Silenced SMGs.
  • Tactical SMG
    • Removed first shot accuracy.
    • Increased base accuracy by 25%.
    • Lowered the sprinting accuracy penalty by 15%.
    • Lowered the ADS bonus by 10 %.
    • Increased damage by +2.
  • Silenced SMG
    • Increased base accuracy by 10%.
    • Increased ADS accuracy bonus by 20%.
    • Increased damage by +2.
• Shotgun ammo now drops in stacks of 4 instead of 5.
• Grenade Launcher visuals have been temporarily changed to shoot fireworks instead. This is a cosmetic change only.

Bug Fixes

• Boogie Bomb explosions are no longer blocked by vehicles.
• Thermal Scoped Rifle will now consistently exhibit intended accuracy while in scoped in. 
• Clingers can no longer stick to players through the ceiling or floor.
• Spike traps placed on a ceiling no longer damage players on the floor above.
• The Thermal Scoped Rifle no longer highlights opened chests.
• Weapons will no longer appear to fire while switching weapons under certain network conditions.

GAMEPLAY

• Progress for elimination quests will now be granted if you down an enemy with the required weapon rather than needing to actually eliminate them with it.
• In Build Mode, walls will now try to build at a closer location when placement is blocked due to lack of structural support. Stairs, Floors, and Roofs are not affected.
• Auto-open doors no longer functions while in the Down-But-Not-Out state.
• Pickaxes will no longer hit the Shopping Cart if you are riding as the passenger.
• Players in the Down-But-Not-Out state can no longer enter Shopping Carts.
• Improvements made to the auto pickup weapons feature to better handle picking up large groups of weapons.

Bug Fixes

• Items dropped in water now stay above the water's surface.
• Excessive fall damage is no longer applied when under certain network conditions.
• Supply Drop crates no longer briefly persist in the world after being opened if it was shot down.
• Smoothed out the location of all soccer balls and basketballs while under varying network conditions.
• Players are no longer able to hit building weak spots through other buildings.
• Having the Sprint Cancels Reloading setting turned on will no longer prevent players from auto-reloading their weapon after sprinting.
• Fixed an issue that applied a constant force to players if they were hit by a Shopping Cart.
• Doors that are interacted with multiple times rapidly no longer get out of sync with their state on the server.
• Fixed an issue where if a player was using a consumable and then exchanged it for a different pickup, it would select the pickaxe instead of the new item.
• Chests no longer create invalid pickups, such as a 2x Chug Jug instead of 2 individual Chug Jug pickups.
  • This created an issue that caused players to be unable to pick up building materials.
• Players are now awarded an elimination if the opposing player bounced off terrain and took fall damage before taking enough damage to be eliminated.
• Fixed a small number of accounts that had incorrect Week 5 Challenges.
• Mushrooms no longer spawn on trees in Moisty Mire.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the ability to open chests by preemptively holding the interact button while approaching the chest.
• Fixed a gap in the terrain that was caused by the sporting goods store in Greasy Grove being slightly moved by accident.

PERFORMANCE

• Improved performance of skydiving on all platforms (especially Switch), by reducing rendering related CPU hitches
• Fixed a source of hitching on Xbox one. In rare instances, this was causing up to 2-second hitches for some players
• Improved framerate around swing-sets by adjusting physics.
• Improved performance by doing less work when players are moving outside of your view.
• Improved performance for moving ammo and weapon pickups.
• Improved player movement updates in large team games. This should make the movement of other players appear smoother.
• Fixed skydiving rings ticking the entire match.

AUDIO

• Changes to enemy building audio (friendly building audio remains the same).
  • Increased volume of enemy building audio.
  • Increased range of enemy building audio by 2 building tiles.
• Added variation to water footsteps on mobile and Nintendo Switch platforms.
• Re-balanced bass content for surround sound mix.

Bug Fixes

• Reallowed the first few milliseconds of audio to play if an emote is triggered while jumping.
• Suspension audio on cars is no longer spammed when jumping or sliding off of them.
• Shopping Carts no longer spam their collision audio if flipped upside down.
• Fixed issue that caused doors to play an open and a close sound when opened.
• Fixed the slowed audio for the Step it Up emote.

UI

• The switch seat icon is now hidden when you can't switch seats.
• The minimap now draws the whole map and bus paths instead of nothing when on the Starter Island.
• Existing map markers are removed when landing after jumping from the Battle Bus to reduce map clutter.
• Custom voice chat output devices can be selected on PC.
• Removed damage numbers from Shopping Carts and added a health bar.
• HUD Elimination and Down-But-Not-Out notifications have received updated animations.

Bug Fixes

• Damage numbers no longer overlap if damage is done to both shield and health.
• Object stacks no longer appear as 0 ammo when looted.
• Map marker icons now properly appear even while on the Starter Island.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes map markers wouldn't be removed when pressing right click and moving the mouse slightly.
• Fixed an issue where the player was unable to drop or split an item after dropping a full stack of items.

ART + ANIMATION

• The cape on the Battlehound* Outfit is now available as Back Bling.
• Added capes to the Ventura* and Venturion* Outfits.
• *Anyone who purchased these Outfits has been granted the Back Bling to be used on any other Outfit.

Bug Fixes

• Visual effects for the Oracle Axe Pickaxe and Ominous Orb Back Bling now appear correctly on consoles.
• Back Bling no longer appears in low detail while spectating players.

REPLAY SYSTEM

• Removed ProAm replays from the Replay Browser.
• Replay Browser entries will now scroll if text doesn't fit.

Bug Fixes

• The Replay Browser no longer loses gamepad focus if chat window is opened.

SPECTATING

Bug Fixes

• The shield bar no longer incorrectly fills and empties when switching between players in spectator mode.
• Storm effects no longer get stuck on players that were in the Storm while being spectated even after leaving the Storm or after switching to a new player.

MOBILE

• Added settings on mobile for low power mode and scalability.
• Improved touch interaction logic to be more consistent and reliable.
• Touch rotation sensitivity in the locker has been reset.

 Bug Fixes

• Vibration setting no longer resets to the wrong value on mobile devices.
• Fixed a bug where lower end mobile devices weren’t displaying the whole island while on the bus.
• Volume on mobile devices will no longer occasionally become muted.

SAVE THE WORLD

MISSIONS + SYSTEMS

• Blockbuster Part 4: The Finale is now available!
  • Complete the questline and choose a Shadow Ops hero.
• Heroes, Trap Schematics, and Weapon Schematics can now be acquired directly from the Collection Book through Recruitment and Research.
  • Select the item you wish to create in the Collection Book. This can be an item you do not have yet, or one that you have already collected.
  • If the item can be created a Recruit or Research button will appear.
  • Event Items, Survivors, and Defenders CANNOT be obtained using this feature.
  • This costs Flux, and either Training Manuals, Weapon Designs, or Trap Designs.
  • The resulting item will be level 1, and schematics will have randomized perks.
• Items can now be unslotted from the Collection Book at a cost of 20 V-Bucks.
  • This will return the same item that you slotted, with the same level and perks.
  • This will remove the Collection Book XP that the item had granted, but will not reduce the level of your Collection Book or change what rewards you have earned. 
  • This XP debt will have to be paid back before you can continue to advance the Collection Book’s level.
• Adding new quest called Independence Day to grant players two Fourth of July themed Soldiers. Part of Blockbuster Part 4.
  • Stars and Stripes Jonesy*.
  • Stars and Stripes Headhunter*.
• *Hats and Backpacks will not be in this patch but will be released in an upcoming patch. Players that own these heroes will automatically get corresponding hats and backpacks once released, at the appropriate and usual evolution levels.
• Changed the way reward rolls work on Group Missions so that players get a larger amount of a single resource:
  • These missions would reward Gold, plus a standard amount of 4 different resource types.
  • They now reward Gold plus 4x the usual amount of a single resource type.
  • This allows players to better target specific resources they are trying to acquire.
  • For missions rewarding RE-Perk and Perk-UP, the rewards can still be split between multiple types of Perk Recombobulator resources.
• Increased the chance for Mini Llamas to upgrade.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where all 2-star Evolution Skill Nodes were required in order to upgrade the rarity of schematics. You now only require the node that matches the item type.

HEROES

• Stars and Stripes Soldiers
  • Stars and Stripes Jonesy - Legendary Survivalist
  • Stars and Stripes Headhunter - Legendary Survivalist 
  • These can be acquired by completing the new Independence Day side quest.

Bug Fixes

• Players will no longer stop moving mid air if they use Crescent Kick after using a Player Jump Pad Trap.
• Bull Rush no longer abruptly stops when falling down ledges.

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• Bobcat Assault Rifle added to the Weekly Store.
  • Available Wednesday, June 27 at 8 PM EST until Wednesday, July 4 at 8 PM EST.
  • Fast firing weapon with excellent damage output and magazine size, but lower range than most assault weapons. 
  • Maintains most of its accuracy while moving and firing from the hip, excelling at close range mobile skirmishes.
• Cozy Campfire now heals through walls, as long as the player is within its range.
• Increased maximum ammo limit for Light Bullets, Medium Bullets, and Shells & Slugs.
  • Light from 5000 to 6000
  • Medium from 3000 to 4000
  • Shells from 1000 to 1200
• Added several schematic perks, allowing for more creative stacking of certain perks:
  • For Melee Weapons, we added Life Leech and Fire Rate to the first and third perk slots respectively, and Heavy Attack Stamina Cost Reduction to the second slot.
  • For Ranged Weapons, we added Reload Speed and Magazine Size to the first and third slots, respectively.
• Increased Lifesteal Perk effectiveness by 50%.
• Increased the effectiveness of pistols that fire explosive projectiles:
  • Firecracker, Liberator, and Freedom's Herald
    • +52% Damage, +79% Environment Damage, +50% Impact.
  • Tiny Instrument of Death
    • +44% Damage, +126% Impact.
  • Zapper and Zap Zapp
    • +90% Damage, +433% Environment Damage, +310% Impact.
• Reduced in-air fuse time of the grenade launcher from 8 seconds to 2.75 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• Increased the environment damage dealt by Remote Explosives so it can reliably destroy walls at higher difficulty levels.
• It is no longer possible for Floor Spikes or Flame Grill traps to hit enemies through floor pieces above the trap.
• Fixed issue where ice formed by the Freeze Trap was blocking damage to enemies.
• The Floor Spike Traps given in the tutorial are now able to be placed on ramps.
• Fixed crosshairs expanding when aiming down sights with Rocket Launchers.
• Replaced the headshot-based perks from the Zap Zapp Pistol Schematic with more relevant damage perks.
  • Headshot Damage was replaced with Damage.
  • Headshot Explosion was replaced with Snare On Hit.
  • Headshot Streak Damage Bonus was replaced with Affliction.
• Fixed the Whisper .45 not properly displaying a minimap icon when dropped.

GAMEPLAY

• Introducing a new enemy, the Super Shielder!
  • The Super Shielder attaches to other enemies like regular Shielders, but extends it’s shield much further, protecting all enemies inside the bubble.
  • This shield also protects the Super Shielder itself!
  • Standing inside the shield lets you attack enemies inside it without penalty.
• Implemented Builder Pro controller scheme for Save the World.
  • This control layout matches the Builder Pro scheme from Battle Royale.
  • Using gadgets and abilities work the same way as the Combat Pro control scheme (which is the same in Combat mode as the Builder Pro scheme).
• Auto-open doors game option now affects doors in Save The World.
• Changed loot drops for specialized grenade items (Impulse Grenades, Port-A-Fort, etc) so that new players won't encounter these items during the tutorial.
  • Most of these items will begin dropping halfway through Stonewood.
  • Port-A-Fort will become available toward the end of Stonewood.
  • M80 and Bottle Rocket remain unchanged, and can still drop during the start of the game.

Bug Fixes

• Build quickbar remains focused after entering menu and re-assigning weapons while in build mode.
• The Teleporter can no longer be placed under Lars' Van in Ride the Lightning mission.
• Fixed bug when cancelling a gadget or hero ability by pressing Toggle Harvest Tool or Next/Previous Weapon.
  • In each case previously, the button would act as though the gadget/ability in question were not selected. For example, if you had your Pickaxe selected and brought out the TEDDY placement tool, pressing the Toggle Harvesting Tool button would switch the player to their last selected weapon rather than their pickaxe. Now it will switch you to the pickaxe.

UI

• HUD Scaling option now also applies to the Save the World HUD.
• Players can select each node on the quest maps to see details and rewards.
• Removed Copy to Clipboard button(s) in the Options menu on consoles.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the gamepad mapping screen showed the wrong mappings for a number of controls on the left side of the controller for Combat Pro.
• Damage numbers are once again visible when hitting destructible objects.
• Fixed a problem where storage transfer was prevented from filling unused space due to a bug with M80s and Bottle Rockets.
• Exiting and rejoining global chat room no longer occurs after changing certain game options.
• Fixed an issue allowing non-leader party members to select a mission on PC.
• Fixed an issue with the Mission Select menu when switching between keyboard and mouse or gamepad inputs.
• Headshot Damage now correctly updates when updating the perk in the Recombobulator.
• Fixed quest announcements not properly clearing after updating.
• The Play Now button for the Jack of All Trades quest has been disabled because the button was sending players to zone types where the quest objective isn’t likely to spawn.

ART + ANIMATION

• Clothing cosmetics now properly simulate in the lobby.

PERFORMANCE

Bug Fixes

• Optimized Hover Turret latency during combat.

AUDIO

Bug Fixes

• Updated SEE-bot launch animation sounds.
• Audio impact sounds now properly play for Elemental Husks.