Fortnite Season 5 Shotgun Changes: What You Need to Know

What You Need to Know About the Season 5 Shotgun Changes in Fortnite Battle Royale

Fortnite’s Season 5 update has finally arrived, bringing with it changes to the weekly challenges, adding in new vehicles, locations, and even new Rifts for players to explore if they’re feeling courageous. However, the 5.0 update for Fortnite also brings with it some pretty big changes to how shotguns work, and considering they’re arguably one of the most popular weapons of choice for close range encounters, it’s important you know exactly what’s changed.

The most significant of shotgun changes in Fortnite’s Season 5 update comes in the form of adjusted shotgun spread patterns. Epic believes these will allow for more consistent spread patterns with no random variation, hopefully allowing for less of those ridiculous 12 damage headshots from point-blank range.

One of the other neat shotgun changes in the Season 5 Fortnite update comes in the form of a slight UI change. You’ll now be able to see how many pellets landed on your target, which will also hopefully allow you to make more sense out of those oddly low-damage dealing headshots. It’ll be visible within the shotgun’s aim reticle, too, so it shouldn’t be easy to miss.

There’s also a slightly controversial change to shotguns in Fortnite’s Season 5 update, specifically regarding the classic ‘double pump’ strategy. This seems to have been cut from the game once again, with the patch notes for the update reading, “After firing a shotgun, another shotgun cannot be fired for a very short time.”

The last of Fortnite’s shotgun changes comes in the form of the number of Heavy Shotgun pellets that are fired in a single shot. This has been upped to 10 from the previous 5. In theory, this should hopefully boost the spread of the weapon, making it even more effective at range. However, it’s worth noting that the Season 5 update patch notes do state that the maximum damage for the Heavy Shotgun remains unchanged, despite doubling the number of pellets per shot.

That’s everything you need to know about the shotgun changes in Fortnite’s Season 5 update. For more tips, tricks, and information, be sure to check out our Season 5 wiki.