The Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 biggest changes

Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 has kicked off the new era with a different island and five new bosses to fight, including swole Peter Griffin, as things go Underground. As usual, a new chapter for Fortnite means there's an array of pretty significant changes and new features to try. There's a suite of new weapons accompanied by a weapon mod system that adds Call of Duty-style attachments, updated player movement that freshens up how the game feels, and three completely new Fortnite experiences that involve Lego, Rocket League, and a Music Festival. To help you make sense of all of these new features, I've detailed all the biggest changes that arrived with Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1: Underground below.

Fortnite Chapter 5 introduces a new island and it has a train

The latest iteration of the Fortnite map is completely new and introduces 11 large POIs to skirmish in. The most notable addition is a train that journeys around almost the whole map in a big loop, with Reckless Railways serving as the grand station.

Along the train's route, you'll pass Fencing Fields and enter the drier shrub biome that's home to a sub-island with its own marina – Ritzy Riviera, as it's known. The train then heads up into the frigid northern regions, getting close to the massive Society mansion called Lavish Lair before eventually reaching the station again. Head directly east from Reckless Railways to reach a huge, snow-covered hotel building called Grand Glacier.

There are new weapons and a new weapon mod system

While you're exploring all these new POIs in BR matches, you'll need to loot the new Fortnite weapons. There are eight weapon additions you can pick up, including the Frenzy Auto Shotgun, Ballistic Shield, and Thunder Burst SMG, all of which can be outfitted with new Fortnite weapon mods.

These mods are essentially weapon attachments that change how your weapon performs and you can have up to four on a single weapon. These range from things like optics with different zoom levels to suppressors that quieten your weapons or laser sights that make them more accurate when hip-firing. You can also go through a lot of effort and spend some Fortnite Gold Bars to get access to a weapon mod bench to choose exactly the mods you want on your weapons.

There are five new boss enemies to fight around the island

And what will you be using these new weapons on aside from other players? Well, there are five bosses heading up the villainous Society that can be found across the island – Oscar, Nisha, Montague, Valeria, and of course, buff Peter Griffin.

Each one resides at a particular POI and can be found there every match. Defeat a boss and you can loot their unique weapon and Society medallion. These medallions constantly regenerate your shields but also reveal your location to all other players. Each medallion also acts as a key for a hidden loot vault within the relevant POI, letting you get even more supplies for the battles ahead.

You can also unlock skins of each of these bosses in the new Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 Battle Pass, along with Vengeance Jones, Hope, and Solid Snake!

Player movement has been updated with new animations

Chapter 5 Season 1 of Fortnite has also introduced some changes to how you'll wander around the island with an animation overhaul for player movement and some other movement tweaks. Moving backwards and strafing are faster than before, while running, sprinting, and crouch-walking are all a bit slower than before. To compensate, stamina now recovers faster, and crouch-walking is stealthier. On top of that, player-built structures now have a little plank you can grab to launch yourself up to help with climbing. Finally, you can now move while applying a Medkit or chugging a Shield Potion, although you can't cancel them to pull out your weapon.

Players have criticized these movement changes already, though Epic Games say it will take some getting used to. They're also looking at tweaking these changes further to speed things up without negatively affecting the newly implemented animations.

Fortnite is getting a Lego-themed experience, Rocket League racing, and a Music Festival

To round off the start to the new season and Chapter, Fortnite is also getting a few completely new ways to play along with Battle Royale, Save The World, and the rest. Firstly, Lego Fortnite is obviously a partnership between Epic Games and the building block toy, but it's essentially a Lego-themed survival adventure where you can build bases and fight against mobs in PvE – it's a bit like Save The World and Minecraft, but it's all contained within Fortnite. There are also loads of new iconic Fortnite skins available in Lego minifigure form.

Next, there's Rocket Racing, which is a new racing mode tied in with car-based football game Rocket League. This is adding some significant changes to vehicles across Fortnite too as you can now customize your in-game sports cars with things like new bodies and wheels, including the Scorpion body from the Season 1 Battle Pass and even some from Rocket League if you've been playing it with the same Epic Games account as Fortnite.

Finally, Fortnite Festival caps off the additions and is a rhythm game-themed mode where you can play in-game instruments to all sorts of well-known songs and Fortnite tracks. It's pretty wild that all of these modes are free, and anyone can hop in an enjoy them!

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