Fortnite tips: Tricks for both beginners and those still mastering Battle Royale

Right now, Fortnite is the biggest game in the world - originally taking note of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and create its own unique take on the genre.

While many Fortnite tips and tricks will also apply to playing other Battle Royale games such as PUBG, there is of course plenty of significant differences to note and exploit which will help you survive as long as possible.

From how to start matches, survive in combat and explore the map, here's many Fortnite Battle Royale tips, tricks and differences that will help - whether you are a beginner or still mastering the game.

Fortnite beginners tips: How Battle Royale works

There are so many little tips and tricks worth knowing for Fortnite that we've decided to compile a huge list on this page, splitting them up into the relevant categories so you can choose to skip ahead, or just browse at your leisure.

Before diving in though, it's worth talking a little about how to approach Fortnite matches in general, especially if you're a newcomer or just looking to learn the game a little better.

How Fortnite Battle Royale works

Battle Royale is a mode within Fortnite, a free-to-play shooter by Epic Games. It works similar to other Battle Royale games, with the aim to survive against up to 100 other players until the very end. It's not to get the most kills - though, chances are, you'll need to kill the other remaining survivor to win, with the current meta rewarding those who are aggressive and can build well. However, you can certainly win matches through avoidance and stealth too.

The flow of the game is as follows:

• You start every match on the Battle Bus, which takes flight over the map. The direction changes every time, and though players are likely to drop into locations near where the route is, you can land anywhere if you pull your parachute straight away.
• After a minute or two, a circle will appear on the map. After a few more minutes, a storm will slowly encroach across the map and close in on the circle, pushing players towards it. Though you can survive in the circle for a short period, you want to move there in good time.
• A second circle will then appear within that circle, and the process repeats. The time it takes for the circle to close in gets quicker each time, and the potency of the storm increases, so moving inside the circle becomes more important. Of course, there's also less space to play in, so you're more likely to encounter other players.
• At this point, there'll just be a handful of you, and you'll likely know where each other is. Forts will be erected, gunfire exchanged, careful trips to supply drops will be made. There can only be one winner. Best of luck!

There is, of course, far more to the above, which our tips below can help with.

Our Fortnite Battle Royale tips and tricks

Though Fortnite takes many notes from other Battle Royale games, there's plenty of nuance that begins to unfold the more experienced you get. Here are some of the many things that'll help you get better faster, whether you're a new or experienced player.

Fortnite tips for the start of a match

• Where you decide to jump from the Battle Bus dictates the flow of the rest of the match. Want to go somewhere where the action is? Choose a named location either close to where the Battle Bus is flying over, or close to the centre of the map - think Retail Row, Dusty Divot or Tilted Towers. Want to land with maybe one or two people? Land away from the path of the bus, but in a named location.
• If you're new to Fortnite, our recommendation is to land towards at the end of the Battle Bus route, and outside of a named location. The loot won't be as good as elsewhere, but you can slowly work your way towards named location, or the circle, while encountering fewer players.

• When you are landing, aim for the tops of buildings. Your axe allows you to chop through the roof and land in an attic or upper floor, and chances are, next to some loot.
• If you land alongside someone else, it's almost always better to ignore them and sprint for the nearest weapon. Though you can axe them to death, it'll take 10 swings and an awkward scramble to avoid hits, while any weapon - even the most common - will mow them down in seconds.

Fortnite tips for loot

• Your first priority is to find decent loot. Loot isn't dictated by the area you land in, so it's a case of exploring until you get a good arsenal.
• The loot chests are the best things to find. They spawn in fixed locations, but only a handful will appear in each location at once. You can hear them through walls, so be sure to explore nearby rooms and floors until you find it.
• If a loot chest is in the roof above you, be sure to build a ramp up away from the chest. If you axe underneath and take out the floor below the chest, the chest will disappear too.

• Unlike PUBG, there is no weapon attachments, scopes or armour pieces to worry about, but you will want to upgrade your shield. Otherwise, you'll want a decent set of weapons - ideally close, medium and long distance ranges - a grenade and a healing item. Our Fortnite best weapons page goes into further detail our picks for these various categories.
• There are various different types of healing and shield items. Small Shields and Bandages only heal part way - capped at 50% and 75% respectively. If you have these and a Big Shield, using them in the right order - the Small Shields then the Big Shield - allows you to reach max shield capacity.
• You can also use the environment to heal you, too. Apples and Mushrooms dotted on the ground throughout the map will give you 5% health and shield respectively. It's time intensive to consume them, but if you have time to kill, it's worth topping up your gauges while you can.
• Each weapon also has five different grades of rarity. If you play Destiny, it's the exact same colour scheme; gray being the most common, then green, blue, purple and orange as the rarest - with each stage increasing a weapon's DPS (or Damage Per Second). In short, the rarer the gun, the more effective it is when it comes to dealing damage.
• Weapon and ammo glow and float in the air, so it's easier to see what you might need from a distance.
• The same applies when players die, too, so no need to check a body to know exactly what's up for grabs.

Fortnite tips for combat

• Headphones are pretty much essential for playing, allowing you to hear players coming toward you. In Fortnite Battle Royale the sound of movement feels louder louder than most other shooters, giving you ample opportunity to prepare for oncoming adversaries.
• If you do see a player, or hear gunshots nearby, carefully weigh up whether you should approach, as you could easily be outgunned and outnumbered. It's best to wait until they are facing away, and or are close, before engaging combat.
• If you do come across a firefight, wait until the end when all other combatants are injured, and have left their guard down. This can be as soon as their combatant has been killed, or are scooping up loot or stopping to heal.
• On the flipside, if have just concluded a firefight, be wary of others nearby. If you can very quickly grab dropped loot then great, but otherwise seek cover, heal up and observe your surroundings before continuing on.

• If you are facing someone who is building, shooting their walls or ramps quickly will destroy them and leave them unguarded. Otherwise, use the opportunity for when they are out of sight to change to a different weapon, flank or hide yourself. Though the meta does lean towards builders in the end-game, with the right approach and weapons, you can outsmart them.
• Building is a great way to defend yourself, or gain a quick height advantage. Even learning the basics can mean the difference between life and death, or even seeing a player ahead of time, and our Fortnite building page has more specifics on how materials work and what structures to learn.
• Bullets leave tracers in Fortnite, so you can better tell the direction they are firing from.
• Ultimately, practicing and getting comfortable with combat, from how weapons and movement handles to the flow of an encounter, is how you exceed in Fortnite. If you are aggressive you will put your opponent in a defensive position, and can dictate the flow of combat, even if they are seemingly fortified. Each kill will also see you gain their loot and materials, giving you a quick leg up for the rest of the match.

• If you are struggling with combat in Fortnite, it's worth being patient. Get in the headspace of where other players will be approaching from in a given situation, or if you see someone in the distance and they haven't spotted you, be patient and get close enough until you know for certain you can take them.
• Alternatively, playing 'spicy' matches, where you drop into named locations such as Tilted Towers where plenty of other players drop in, allow you to practice combat without the worry of losing an entire match's progress. The beauty of Fortnite is if you die quickly, you can load back in and be playing again within a minute or two.

Fortnite tips for the Circle and Storm

• Your sprint cannot outrun the storm, however like PUBG, you can stay in it for a generous period of time while your health slowly depletes, so don't panic.
• Always use your map to plan your route effectively to the safe circle.
• Beyond the shopping trolley there are no vehicles in Fortnite, however with the map being much smaller in size, it's much easier to get to the safe circle in time before the storm sets in. Even if the circle is on the other side of the island, there is always enough time to get there if you plan effectively.

• Though you should avoid the storm, some regard staying in edge of the storm as a tactic, especially in later stages so you can shoot from the outside in. Of course, this entirely depends on your position, your gear, your health and so on.
• Even if you have reached the safe circle, don't assume every other player is also there, as more will be coming from the outside in. Remember this to not only avoid getting shot in the back, but also to your advantage, especially if you can pick advancing players off from the safety of a nearby building.
• If you are in the circle from the start the game, don't expect things to remain quiet. Players will still roam around looking for loot, and if you are on the edge, fortify yourself in structures to pick off any players that might be coming in when the circle does.

Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 is here! It brings a free Lego Insider skin and redemption codes with it, along with a new Victory Umbrella. We've also got pages on new features like Medallions, Weapon Mods, and how to complete a Train Heist. Meanwhile, learn what the best weapons are in the current season, how to get XP fast, and what the best PC settings are to help earn a Victory Crown.

Fortnite tips for exploration and tactics

• You cannot go prone in Fortnite, meaning hiding in the long grass or slowly worming your way to a building is impossible.
• Not only is moving much louder than in PUBG - helpful to learn where people are coming from - but sprinting will leave behind a dust trail, helping you identify players from a distance. Remember this especially if you're forced to move out in the open.
• You can crouch to help hide your presence as much as possible, and move faster with crouching by hitting sprint as you would when standing upright.

• With the map being smaller in size, it is much higher density than most PUBG matches, meaning players encounter each other faster. Keep this in mind while exploring.
• When moving from one location or building to the next, avoid running out in the open if you can help it. Use the cover of trees, buildings or cliffs to help you avoid getting spotted. If you get caught unprepared in someone's cross-hairs, you'll last barely a few seconds.
• Since Fortnite is a third-person game - meaning the camera is above your character - you can hide behind scenery while keeping hidden. This allows you to observe your surroundings without revealing yourself, and is particularly useful in firefights, so you can emerge and take down enemies at just the right time.

• A long held practice in Battle Royale games is closing the door behind you when entering buildings. That way, it looks like no one has entered, so you can catch possible on-comers by surprise. Conversely, you could keep the door open as a warning to other players, or pretend the house has been looted and left abandoned - such is the mind games involving open and closed doors!
• If you see a pile of tires, you can walk into them to spring you high into the air. This is great for getting onto the roofs of buildings for a vantage point, or if you are being chased, a speedy means of evasion.

Fortnite tips for customisation

• Fortnite is free-to-play, which means you can start playing without spending any money. There's also no advantage to buying anything with V-bucks - the game's currency - as it's all cosmetic.
• Of course, these cosmetic items carry a large amount of social cache. These cosmetic items are skins (character outfits) and back bling, gliders, emotes, your axe (or harvesting tool), back bling and loading screen wallpapers.

• Cosmetics are primarily unlocked in two ways. One is through the in-game store, which refreshes once per day. Though the store cycles items, and things will very likely return, there is no guarantee when you can get them again. So if you want to buy something, the system incentivizes you to buy it there and then, as you don't otherwise know when your next opportunity will be.

• The other way is through the Battle Pass. This is a progression system tied to the current in-game season, which updates every 10 weeks. The Battle Pass has 100 tiers, each with an unlock attached. You can progress through without paying for a Battle Pass, but doing so gives you additional exclusive cosmetics, as well as XP multipliers. However, these unlocks only appear for that season, so if you want some of these items, you have to buy the Battle Pass that season and unlock it - once they're gone, they're gone.
• The Battle Pass doesn't just have cosmetic benefits. Each week a new series of Challenges are released, which range from combat or loot objectives (open chests or kill enemies in certain named locations, or getting kills with specific weapons) to collectables (from treasure hunts to finding a number of gnomes dotted around the map). Not only do these give you something new to accomplish, but push players out of their comfort zone and try new things - and can make you a more rounded player in the process.
• Struggling with Challenges? Then consider playing the many LTMs - or Limited Time Modes - that are available each week. For example, 50v50 effectively splits the map into two sides, giving you full run of half the map to open chests or find hidden treasure, or gives you a better chance of picking off enemies as a great rather than individually or in small squads.
• There are other ways of getting cosmetics, too - such as getting a Victory Royale (a match win) for umbrella gliders, or tying your account through services like Twitch and PSN for bonus skins. But by and large, cosmetics through the store and Battle Pass are time limited. If you want something, it's probably best to try and unlock it while it's available. It's a slightly devious way of getting players to invest their time and V-bucks in cosmetics while they can, but at least it's transparent - a key difference compared here compared to blind boxes in other games, for example, is you know exactly what you are unlocking, and when.