Fortnite Battle Royale's first new limited-time mode since the start of season 3 is live, and it is Solid Gold. That's not an assessment of quality, Solid Gold's the actual name; all weapons are Legendary, or in other words Gold. Before you drop into your first match, you should check out some advice for how to win when everybody has the best weapons and most have no idea how to use them. Up above you'll find some practical advice from our ace video team, and below I've run down some reasons you should definitely give this mode a try even if you aren't much of a royal battler.
It's less random
Random drops are part of the fun of battle royale games. Along with changing safe-zone locations, they make for unpredictable matches no matter how many rounds you've played. But random drops can also be a big point of frustration when you can't seem to find anything better than a crappy revolver and your opponents all have gold SCAR rifles. Solid Gold limits the weapon pool to Legendary selections only. Matchups still aren't "fair" a lot of the time (your beautiful gold sniper rifle won't do much good when the enemy's right in your face with a hand cannon) but they are more evenly matched overall.
Epic had the good sense to constrain Rocket Launchers and Grenade Launchers "mostly" to supply drops (those are the crates that periodically drop in on smoke signals), because otherwise that's all anybody would use. Oh, and non-weapon items still drop in a variety of rarities/strengths, though Solid Gold seems to tweak those drop rates too. It's raining Chug Jugs!
The beginning of the match feels more like the end
With everybody packing big firepower and healing items, the flow of a Solid Gold match slams straight into the endgame. You know those little skirmishes you get into with somebody a few buildings down, the ones where you both take potshots at each other for a while then give up and move on? Those don't happen so much when a few hits from anything can take you down. Solid Gold is a very fatal mode.
There isn't much need to roam the map looking for superior gear when it only takes a few chests to find an ideal loadout. It kinda feels like the end of a match, but with more people and overall mayhem. You could take that as an invitation to throw yourself directly into battle, for sure, but a different kind of farming is still a good idea.
Stone is the new wood
Forget about wood structures, they'll get turned into splinters within seconds. Solid Gold mode still gives builders a fighting chance by increasing the amount of stone and metal you get from farming. If you see a column of stone out in the wild, you should run right over to that Big Craggy Boi and knock it the hell down. I managed to get about 500 stone materials just on the way to the circle by doing that, which is more than enough to build a big, sturdy fort.
Unfortunately, I built up too early and the next circle started closing outside of my cozy brownstone. Then I got killed while I was running into the next circle because I engaged a group by myself. That's pretty typical though because I kinda suck at Fortnite Battle Royale.
Get the best games and entertainment news, reviews, tips and offers delivered to your inbox every week by signing up to the GamesRadar+ newsletter today.
