In the latest Fortnite Battle Royale “State of Development” blog post, Epic Games has detailed upcoming changes to the game. These include ongoing optimizations, server support, matchmaking improvements, and more.

The most interesting upcoming feature, for me at least, is the announcement of 60fps coming to consoles later this month. Fortnite 60fps performance won’t be limited to just the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, either. Both the standard PS4 and Xbox One are set to receive the smoother gameplay boost.

Here are the highlights from the latest dev update:

SERVICE STABILITY ISSUES

We were not able to stay ahead of our continued growth and multiple of our backend services have been struggling under load the last several weeks (e.g. friends functionality and general login service). And we also shipped v2.3.0 with significant bugs.

We don’t consider either acceptable. We have changed our release plans & processes to help improve quality of client builds, and scrambled people to make traction on backend scalability by any means possible.

ONGOING OPTIMIZATIONS

When you play some Battle Royale, we want the time from when you’re in the lobby to when you’re in the action to be as short as possible. We’re continuing to work on load time improvements to help with that. You want a smoother in-game experience, and we agree!

We are testing and bug fixing improvements that will deliver better level streaming with less hitches. We’re getting close to being able to test a significant optimization to our networking code that should get us closer to running the server at a solid 20 Hz even in the beginning of the match.

60 FPS ON CONSOLE

Later this month we plan to add an optional 60 FPS mode for Battle Royale on consoles (PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, Xbox One X). This 60 FPS mode is tuned for each console to maximize frame rate while minimizing loss of visual quality.

WEST COAST (US) / BRAZILIAN SERVERS

We feel your pain with ping (our internal playtests are done across the ocean). We have added West Coast and will add Brazilian Xbox servers to provide better connection options.

AUDIO

Footsteps

Above/below footsteps have been implemented, meaning that different audio assets will play depending on another player’s position relative to you. These assets have been filtered based on real-world data to sound like they’re on the floor above you versus the floor below you.

In addition, we also remove some of the filtered above/below content if there’s direct line of sight between you and the other player. This “opens” the footsteps up a bit and helps in cases where the building gets a little wild.

Listener Position

We’ll be changing the way the listener behaves for 2.5. Volume attenuation will be moved to the player’s location, and panning will still be calculated from the camera. Previously, panning and volume attenuation were based on the camera’s location. This led to a lot of confusion when moving the camera around to locate a chest, as the volume would dip in and out as the camera swung around.

Building

Audio for placing structures has been redesigned to put more emphasis on the “placement” of structures. So if a player is rapidly approaching you and building ramps up to your tower, you’ll hear a steady “chunk, chunk, chunk” as they place the structures, extending to about the range of sprinting footsteps. We’ll be closely monitoring how this affects building, both in offensive and defensive situations.

BATTLE PASS SEASON 3

We thank all of you for your support throughout Season 2. We’re excited and can’t wait to announce details on the Battle Pass for Season 3!
For example, we heard your concerns about the daily challenge system.

In Season 3 we’re adding flexibility by replacing the second daily challenge with a new weekly system. Battle Pass owners will unlock a new bundle of quests each week of the season which can be completed any time before the end of the season.

Read the full development update, which includes a preview of concept skins, here.

In other Fortnite news, Epic Games is slowing down the development of Paragon to focus on Fortnite, here’s the latest community stats showcase, and get a look at the future updates coming to the game.

Source: Epic Games