Fortnite Battle Royale devs apologize for extended downtime and lay out new update features

Fortnite Battle Royale is getting its first update since reworking the map, but it's taking a lot longer than expected to implement. The official Fortnite Twitter account confirms that we can expect "at least a few more hours" of downtime before the servers come back online; it started at 1am PST / 11am GMT, so this is already a pretty long one. 

An official post on the Fortnite forums explains why this downtime has been so much worse than the others: in short, they were trying to fix an old problem with their database but messed it up, so now they have to restore it (again, because the first restore attempt failed). At least there will be some fun new stuff to play with whenever the game does come back online - here's a quick rundown of the biggest changes coming to Fortnite Battle Royale in update 2.3.0.

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Chug Jug is the best and silliest healing item

Think of Chug Jug as a jumbo-sized, Legendary Slurp Juice with even more risk and reward: you have to stay still and drink it for 15 seconds, but if you can manage that, you'll be back in fighting shape with full health and shields. Nutritious! And the icon reminds me of those mega-sized reusable soda cups they sell at convenience stores, so that's fun. I can feel my blood sugar spiking just thinking about it.

AutoRun gives your fingers a break

If you don't happen to drop straight into the middle of the safe zone, you're going to spend a lot of your time in any given Battle Royale match running forward. The new AutoRun feature lets you rest your poor thumbs/fingers for a time, but do juke around every now and then or else a sniper's bullet will find your noggin in no time.

Fortnite AutoRun PC button: Press "=" or "NumLock"

Fortnite AutoRun console button: Double click the left analog stick

The sanctity of soccer is restored

There's a legit soccer stadium in Fortnite now (find it in the unmarked settlement between Snobby Shores and Tilted Towers) but some bad sports out there realized you could even trigger the special scoring effects by kicking a basketball through a net. NO MORE OF THAT.

Better loot distribution and other tweaks

If you ever made the mistake of dropping into Haunted Hills, you have my sympathies. That place is a damn graveyard when it comes to loot. Also a literal graveyard. Once the update is live, Haunted Hills will be no less haunted but extra loot-y. Other things: you won't get challenge or stat progress if you quit matches before dying (or winning); the Battle Bus music and effects won't be so ear-splittingly loud; and dropped items will no longer fall off the map and reappear next to nearby players like gifts from friendly spirits. Fortnite really is ghosts the whole way down, isn't it?