What’s your fastest tower build? Can you prep a jump pad launch zone quick enough before the storm closes in? A Fortnite face-off is measured by the nimbleness of the fingers in charge of pulling together a hasty fortress or swapping to sturdier materials. Out-building your opponent, much like a steady aim in shooters, hinges on but a few seconds of reflexes. It all starts with making sure you know the best Fortnite keybinds.
We’re putting together a couple of starter Fortnite keybind setups that groups your most important building commands closely to the standard WASD movement configuration. With how frenetic Fortnite’s combat can get, having the advantage of constant motion without worrying about awkward hand gymnastics is a huge plus to your Victory Royale chances. See if either of these examples brings an improvement; if so, consider further customization of additional controls - editing, material swap, and so on - for a fully personalized scheme. It's a good idea to head into Fortnite Playground mode to test out whether your new keybinds work for you before heading into a proper match.
Mouse + keyboard combo
The mouse’s side buttons are often woefully overlooked for assigning important functions to keep your hand from staying too far from the almighty left and right click. (If you haven't got a mouse with buttons, you might want to treat yourself to our pick of the best gaming mouse options around right now.)
This setup separates a few structure types to your mouse and a few keys close by to WASD, a versatile division of responsibility between both hands with minimal shifting off moving or shooting. The scroll wheel click is also a great option to replace or supplement side buttons with another build bind (roof, perhaps) or even movement such as jump (try it; it’s an interesting experience using the spacebar for something else besides hopping around). As for your inventory slots, these are tightened closer to the left end of your number key line, including a couple dropping beneath WASD for quick access to med, shield, or thrown items.
- Harvesting Tool: 1
- Weapon Slot 1: 2
- Weapon Slot 2: 3
- Weapon Slot 3: 4
- Weapon Slot 4: Z
- Weapon Slot 5: X
- Wall: Mouse Button 4
- Floor: Q
- Stairs: Mouse Button 5
- Roof: V
- Trap: 5
Keyboard only
You can certainly corral Fortnite’s fundamentals tightly around just your movement keys if that’s what you prefer, and this layout is one such example. You’ll be using the thumb that naturally rests on the spacebar to oversee a row of building keys sitting just underneath WASD, while your slot keys take mostly the same assignments as the above arrangement with a couple adjustments. We recommend moving jump to a different key entirely - left Shift is a good choice if you enable auto-run - so you can keep hopping during a shotgun clash.
- Harvesting Tool: F
- Weapon Slot 1: 2
- Weapon Slot 2: 3
- Weapon Slot 3: 4
- Weapon Slot 4: Q
- Weapon Slot 5: X
- Wall: B
- Floor: N
- Stairs: V
- Roof: T
- Trap: 5
