Did Fortnite secretly change Pump Shotguns in Season 2?

Fortnite’s Pump Shotguns have long been a point of contention for players, but it appears they may have been secretly changed for the launch of Chapter 2, Season 2, but Epic Games haven’t explained yet.

Pump Shotguns are notoriously fickle weapons to carry. You have the ability to one-pump someone, while also being completely let down by it in the next breath with an unexpectedly weak shot.

This is part and parcel of the Fortnite experience and something many players have come to terms with – but it seems the Pump may have been secretly changed for Season 2, and has left some scratching their heads.

There’s a couple of things that players believe have changed in Season 2, mostly pertaining to damage, but what are they? Without patch notes, it is hard to tell for certain, yet, there are a couple of theories floating around.

Pellet Damage

One change that has occurred, that is quite hard to hide, is the amount of damage being done by individual pellets of the Pump Shotgun, as pointed out on Reddit by HirsiHD.

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While these are supposed to only deal damage in increments of 10, players have noticed a variation in this, hitting, for example, for 98 damage as opposed to 100.

Headshot Damage

Another difference players have noticed in is headshot damage or, more specifically, hitbox issues when hitting a headshot. As evidenced in the video below, from March 2, hitting someone in the chin, square in the head, or even slightly above the head all deal different amounts of damage  – despite the fact that you would expect them all to be classified as a headshot.

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As such, you would think the damage would be the same for all shots, but this shows clear inconsistencies, with a chin shot essentially being akin to a body shot.

(Timestamp 2:05 for mobile viewers)

Without Epic’s patch notes, we’re not sure what changes have been made exactly, or why, but if players keep bringing up issues with the Pump Shotgun they may be forced to comment on the issue or explain what changes have been made.

So far, we’re unsure whether any other changes were secretly made to the Pump in Season 2, but the examples above are definitely enough to raise some eyebrows.