Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 Shock 'n Awesome live launch coverage: all new weapons, locations and mechanics in Battle Royale
Fortnite's new season is here, and with it a new arsenal of weapons, new bug-infested locations on the Battle Royale map, and a Halo collab.
Welcome to live coverage of the new Fortnite season
Morning everyone! I'm armed with a big flask of coffee and a good night of sleep, and for the next several hours I'll be diving into Fortnite Chapter 6 Season 4 Shock 'N Awesome, which launches today.
Servers are still down right now but they should be back before long. When they are, I’ll play as much as I can and post about it here—expect images of the new locations, video of the new weapons, and snap judgments about the season as a whole.
I'm excited by what I've seen so far. Epic has gone heavy on the PvE, which should help fill mid-round lulls, and I like that there are so many ways to get better loot: chests, hive sacs in bug nests, supply drops as you rank up, squashing mini-boss Queen bugs, and ransacking O.X.R. bunkers (O.X.R. is the big new faction this season).
The big question for me is, how good will the new O.X.R. Assault Rifle feel? Like most Fortnite players I lean heavily on my rifle and I'm wondering if it'll supplant the reliable Hammer AR, which is unvaulted for this season, as my go-to.
Come back throughout the day for regular updates.
Watch the Chapter 6 Season 4 trailer
The season's trailer came out yesterday, giving us our first look at the new weapons in action. You can see the new assault rifle—and the battle pass Halo skin—at 0:40, the new three-headed minigun at 0:50, and the orbital airstrike at 1:10 (we don't know exactly how that will work yet).
Some of what you'll see above won't arrive until later in the season: the Power Rangers blaster and the Megazord who slays the Queen bug at the end of the trailer aren't here at launch.
5 biggest changes this season
Boons: Each round you'll earn boons that make you more powerful. One improves aiming down sights, one lets you sprint for longer, one increases magazine size for all weapons, one reveals future storm circles, and then one—the Super Soldier boon—is an all-rounder that improves as you rank up, eventually granting unlimited stamina, faster sprint, and reduced recoil.
Four new points of interest on the map: Shown in the image below. The Hive is insect central, O.X.R HQ has lots of NPCs and an armory where you can buy weapons, and Ranger's Run has plenty of bugs and high-tier loot.
The full loot pool: Sentinel Pump stays, Bass Boost gloves go, Hammer AR returns
I'm glad the Sentinel Pump—forever my favourite shotgun—is staying. In the battle of the assault rifles, it's the new O.X.R. Rifle against the fast-firing Fury AR and the Hammer AR, which has been unvaulted. The Hammer is always a strong pick, so I imagine I'll be carrying that or the new one, depending on how that feels.
BR LOOT POOL UPDATESunvaulted/added:- Hammer Assault Rifle- O.X.R. Rifle- Sweeper Shotgun- Wrecker Revolver- Stinger SMG- Agile Aiming Boon- Extended Magazine Boon- Launch Pad- Chug Splash- FlowBerry Fizz- Crash Pad Jr.- Med-Mistvaulted:- Bass Boost- Surgefire… pic.twitter.com/oVt3q0HYKKAugust 7, 2025
Proximity chat in Battle Royale?
Epic hasn't confirmed this, and we don't have any more information for the moment—when exactly it will arrive or how it will work. I imagine that if it were added, it would be off by default. I don't think I could take someone taunting me with a 'Be Humble' emote AND insulting my skills out loud after they've gunned me down.
It looks like Proximity Chat is being added to Battle Royale soon 🤔Epic has seperated some Creative Proximity Chat files so they could be included in BR. It will have a setting to disable and enable it.(via me & @Loolo_WRLD) pic.twitter.com/sWlgvvS2wxAugust 7, 2025
New OG season: Desert biome, a Viking village and Shockwave Grenades
It's not just the main Battle Royale mode that's getting an update: OG mode, which revisits Fortnite's past, enters Chapter 1 Season 5 today.
The map is transforming, spawning a desert biome and rifts all over, as well as three new POIs: the town of Paradise Palms (pictured above), the Lazy Links golf course, and a Viking Village near Greasy Grove. Here's a full picture of the new map, via the official Fortnite X account.
There’s a whole lotta sand in my boot. Matter of fact, maybe a whole desert. OG Season 5 drops tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/6lGOFIEE6DAugust 6, 2025
But as always, it's the old loot that the community is most nostalgic for. We're getting five items added at launch: the compact SMG, the heavy sniper rifle (a one-shot headshot), the double barrel shotgun, the Rift-To-Go, and the Shockwave Grenade, which is arguably Fortnite's best mobility item.
Later in the season, Epic will add the suppressed assault rifle, the Grappler, and the Port-A-Fortress.
And if you want to play OG in Expert mode—no bots, no skill-based matchmaking—you can do that in duos for build mode, or solo for Zero Build. While you're at it, read Morgan's Gripes Week piece on games that try to sneak bots into multiplayer matches. Well, this is awkward...
We're light on mobility this season
The previous season, Super, was rammed full of mobility items: we had the Bass Boost gloves, Shockwave Grenades, dash sprites, the Surf Cube, Myst Form, and a grappler. Most of them are cut for the start of Season 4, which might make both pressuring enemies and escaping fights more difficult.
Shockwave Grenades are staying and, I'd suggest, should be your go-to item. I'll be hunting them down as soon as the servers go live.
The other main combat mobility for this season is the Crash Pad Jr, which bounces you a short distance. It's less versatile than the Shockwave Grenades, but it'll get you out of a sticky spot.
The only other mobility item is the launch pad, which fully sends you skywards and deploys your glider. It's more for getting around the map than for combat.
The wild cards are the new boons and medallions, which you get from killing mini-boss Queen bugs. Two of the medallions—the Surge medallion and the Springleg medallion—will boost your movement, and levelling your Super Soldier Ranked boons via the O.X.R. ranks will eventually give you unlimited sprint. They could all be crucial when it comes to the final circle.
And it confirms to me that the Flowberry Fizz, which helps you jump higher, is going to be the meta healing item (and it combos brilliantly with the Crash Pad).
5 hours of downtime
This is longer than most outages we've had this chapter, but it's hardly unprecedented. We've had eight-hour waits before—let's hope we don’t get that far.
A detailed breakdown of all the Battle Royale map changes
It shows just how much Epic is transforming the map for this season: alongside the bug infestation and new major POIs we've got plenty of new landmarks. If Buggy Slurpwaters has—as its name suggests—lots of healing slurp barrels, it could be a go-to landing spot (on that note, I'll be updating my best landing spots guide over the next week as soon as I've got to grips with the new season).
A detailed look at all the #FortniteShockNAwesome v37.00 map changes. 🪲 pic.twitter.com/gAJiYc3S0iAugust 7, 2025
A closer look at the new weapons—and what I hope they do
Yesterday's trailer showed us some of the new weapons in action. Let's look at three, starting with the Swarmstrike rocket launcher (above). From what we know so far, it appears that it won't be in the season at launch, but don't hold me to that. You guide it with a laser and it shoots a hail of seven relatively slow-moving rockets.
I imagine it's most effective at clearing bugs and destroying buildings, although I hope it isn't too powerful against builds (we've had plenty of items that needed nerfing because they could destroy any structure in one go).
Next, the O.X.R assault rifle.
Will it have a scope? Many players were annoyed that the previous season, Super, didn't have a rifle with sights to aim down—all the guns were third-person firing, which was disappointing after how strong the Holo Twister was in Chapter 6 Season 1.
The new rifle looks like it has a very small red-dot sight in the picture above, but we only see it firing in third person. I would, personally, love first-person aiming, although I imagine it'd make this a must-carry weapon, which could feel samey.
Finally, the Bug Blaster, which fires explosive plasma projectiles, or you can charge it for a more powerful attack.
Charging items almost never become meta because of their slow fire rate, so I'd love for the heavy attack to properly blow people away.
First look at the Hive area
After a few "matchmaking errors" I got into my first game and dropped near the Hive, which is where the bug infestation is spreading from.
It was as busy as you'd expect. A pop-up message told me the "threat level" was high, and I was promptly wiped out by a player with a shotgun. I like the environment, though: it's colourful, there's lots of variation in height, and it looked like there were water jets to send you skywards if you needed to escape.
You can also see the big letter 'C' on the right hand side. That's the O.X.R. ranking, which you'll boost by killing bugs and enemies.
We go again!
The Swarmer bugs are weak—and potentially so is the new shotgun
The bugs you can see in the clip are the Swarmers: the most common type. They pop out of the nearby hive (the purple glowing mound), and they seem to have 36HP.
What I think happens is that, when players have collectively dealt enough damage to bugs at a single location (I'm at Ranger's Run), then the Queen will spawn, as you see at the end of the video.
I'm using the new Sweeper shotgun in the clip above. First impressions are that it'll be great against bugs, but not so good against players because it has a wide horizontal weapon spread. That means that you're likely to miss lots of pellets even if you have a player in the middle of your crosshairs.
But let's see: this is just a snap judgment, and maybe it deals lots of damage at higher rarities.
The full map, with lots of new icons
This is what the full map will look like when you start the new season.
You'll need to get your head around the new icons: the Queen colonies are the mini-bosses, and they're in the same place every game. If you defeat them you'll get a mythic weapon and a medallion.
There are two O.X.R. Armories each round. From what I've seen, one is always at the O.X.R. HQ, while the other moves around (here, it's at Canyon Crossing).
Infested outposts appear to move each round: go there to defeat bugs and find higher-tier loot.
Finally, you can see that two locations—Canyon Crossing and Supernova Academy—have gold names. I'm not quite sure what that signifies, but perhaps it's where you find the O.X.R. Bunkers, which you can unlock once you reach rank A and get exotic weapons? Hopefully I'll find out soon.
Too. Much. Stuff.
The idea is that you're protecting an NPC outpost—from what I can gather, there are set points on the map where this event can happen.
When 20 bugs die, four drop pods fall from the sky, each stuffed with solid loot and boons to buff your stats. (And by the way I was wrong earlier when I said the weakest critters, the Swarmers, have 36HP—it's just that they die in one shot).
I'm currently solo right now and I feel like clearing one outpost would set me up for an entire match: I got multiple purple weapons from this outpost, including the new rocket launcher.
And that launcher isn't laser guided and doesn't appear to launch multiple projectiles as it did in the trailer—just take a look at the clip below.
New assault rifle feels strong without being overpowering
Assault rifles are the backbone of Battle Royale, and I was curious how the new one—the O.X.R. AR—would feel. Would it have a first-person scope? Would it be as good as the Spire Rifle?
But it's not quite as strong as last season's AR. It's in same mold—a relatively slow-firing, low recoil, accurate assault rifle—but it deals a touch less damage than the Spire, and has a much smaller magazine, at 21 bullets.
In the clip above, you can see that it deals 29 damage with a body shot, and 51 with a headshot. That's at range, with a green-rarity weapon.
I still think it will still be a versatile mid-range weapon, but I'm not sure it'll emerge as the stand-out gun of the season, especially because the alternative is the the strong Hammer AR.
Here are the full stats of the base weapon.
Capture the flag
Two capture points will spawn per round of Battle Royale, which isn't something I'd expected before the season launched.
They're marked by red flags on the map, and all you need to do is stay in the vicinity of the flagpole as it slowly rises.
Once it gets to the top, it'll drop loot and you'll gain a chunk of O.X.R. rank—I get enough here to rank up, which also earns me a drop pod (my screen is purple because I'm standing in the storm).
It's yet another way of getting high-end loot. As I said below, it feels like this season is bursting with things to do, and ways to rank up, but perhaps that's just because everything is new and fresh.
I stand corrected: the rocket launcher is definitely laser-guided
I just had my first properly long match, getting down the final two before getting blasted by a mythic Sweeper shotgun (although I still maintain the Sentinel Pump is a better option).
I've realised a few things: first, I was wrong about the rocket launcher not being laser-guided. It is, and it does fire multiple rockets at once, if you aim with your right-click first. If you hip fire, you have no laser.
In 1v1 firefights it's not going to be much use—I got into a long-distance fight with an enemy and we both gave up and pulled out our rifles after a couple of flurries—but it's really powerful against vehicles and I can see it working brilliantly in team-based build mode where you need to chew through layers of wood at once.
The new revolver is sneaky good
I got three kills with it in my last round—against, gasp, real players, not bots!—and it just feels great to use. I chased down an enemy and, at medium range, with not particularly good aim, landed two quick shots for 60 each to finish them off.
O.X.R. HQ is gigantic, with lots of weapons to buy
A final thought before I drop into another round: the O.X.R. HQ feels like it could become one of my regular spots.
There are half a dozen NPCs there who you can pay to fully patch you up, and, more importantly, there's a giant armory that sells almost anything you'd want to buy—a gold Sentinel Pump, a Shockwave Launcher, high-level assault rifles, FlowBerry Fizz, and more—and it all costs either 600 or 800 gold.
I've landed here twice and both times I've had it to myself, which felt eerie. I imagine that when people build up their gold reserves, this could become a hot drop location.
Slaying the Queen is actually really hectic
Queen bugs spawn at three fixed spots on the map each round. I decided to drop straight on the one at Demon's Debris (the old Demon's Domain), and it's a surprisingly tough fight solo. Not because the Queen herself hits hard, but because it's a bit of a mosh pit of bugs and other players.
I finished her with the new minigun, which you can see above. So far I've enjoyed using it against the bugs, but not against players: it takes time to spin up, and I find it less versatile than the assault rifles, although I imagine it'll be viable in build modes, particularly in team-based build modes with one player carrying it.
Once you defeat the Queen at Demon's Debris she drops a medallion—very fun to use, I'll talk about it in the next post—and a mythic version of the O.X.R. assault rifle. I said earlier the gun felt strong, but not too strong, and having handled the mythic version, that still feels right. It's accurate and the damage is good, especially at higher rarities. But its small magazine holds it back, especially because the reload isn't rapid.
Double-jump medallion plus Flowberry Fizz equals pure joy
Now onto that Springleg medallion, which you get for defeating the Demon's Debris Queen (see the last post). It gives you a double jump as long as you have stamina, and makes you immune to fall damage.
It's a joy to use—when you combine it with the anti-gravity of the Flowberry Fizz you float, weightless, for miles in the air. Even though I mess up my sprint jump, I still land exactly where I wanted.
It's less useful when you don't sprint jump, as you can see at the end of the clip.
I haven't tried the other medallions, but this is the one I was most excited for and given there is less mobility this season, I can see it becoming part of the meta.
The other two medallions are the Surge medallion (at the Hive), which increases your movement speed and gives a burst when sliding, and the Carapace medallion (at Ranger's Ruin), which nets you 50 shield per kill, and passively regenerates 3 shield per second, up to a maximum of 50.
No, really, this revolver is actually amazing
I'll be wrapping up this live page shortly with a bunch of closing thoughts, but before I do that: can I reiterate what I said earlier, that this new revolver—basically a shotgun—is legit.
You'll see in the clip that it consistently does about 60 damage at medium range when scoped in, which is more than any other shotgun. It fires fast, and has a decent-size magazine.
Yes, I whiff one of my shots—in my defence, I thought the player was a bot, and it caught me off guard when they weren't—but then kill them with a 70-damage hipfire headshot.
I've always been a Sentinel Pump fan, but this is tempting as a finishing weapon, when you've already chipped away at an enemy with an assault rifle. I'll be updating my Fortnite best weapon guide as soon as I can, and right now I still don't have a clear sense of what's top-tier, but I think this revolver might be up there.
Closing thoughts: an overwhelming start to the season
4. For builds, experiment with the weapon pool: there are no hugely standout weapons for 1v1 firefights, but I think the minigun and the rocket launcher—both easy to find—will be essential in build fights, particularly if you're playing in teams.
I'll bring you more Fortnite coverage of the season on the site soon, including a weapons tier list and a guide to the best drop spots.
Take care and thanks for reading!
A very brief day one recap
- This season rules
- This season sucks
- Everyone's too sweaty at the start of the new season
The biggest topic of conversation may be the revolver-shotgun Sam discusses a few posts down. The consensus so far appears to be that it is definitely OP, but so much fun it'd be a shame to nerf it.
