Fortnite Festival Season 4 Patch Notes: Metallica collab, Battle Stage & more

John Esposito
Fortnite Festival Season 4 Metallica collab

Season 4 of Fortnite Festival launches June 13, bringing a Metallica collab and the Battle Stage to the musical mode.

Since its debut, Fortnite Festival has slowly gained popularity as each new season brought in iconic musical talents. The Weekend, Lady Gaga, and Billie Eilish have been the first three headlines for the mode, bringing their music and more.

Season 4 is here, and after much teasing, legendary heavy metal band Metallica joins Fortnite’s metaverse. Along with that, there’s a ton of Metallica-themed cosmetics, gameplay improvements, and a new mode to try out. Here’s the full breakdown, courtesy of the latest blog post.

Fortnite Festival Season 4 patch notes

Battle Stage debuts

Battle Stage is a new mode joining Fortnite Festival, which will see 16 players battle it out across a four-song setlist. The last one standing wins the match.

Each public Battle Stage match begins with up to 16 players, all competing to get the highest score on a randomly chosen song from Festival’s featured rotation. You’ll play the same track as other players but get to choose your song part and difficulty as you riff your way to the highest score. Owned Jam Tracks cannot be selected, so no one player has an advantage. The four lowest-scoring players are eliminated at the end of each song until there’s a single victor! 

Playing accurately is key, and with Bass and Mic multipliers set to 6x on Battle Stage, everyone’s on an even playing field.

If you play Battle Stage in a private match, compete against your party of up to four! We’ll leave the setlist to you — players in a private match can choose from their shared library of owned Jam Tracks and Festival’s featured rotation.

New Festival Pass

The latest season will introduce a new Festival Tab with instruments, Jam Tracks, and auras as the rewards. Like previous seasons there’s a free reward track and a Premium Reward Track upgrade.

Purchasing the Premium Reward Track unlocks the Lars Ulrich Outfit immediately, while the Robert TrujilloKirk Hammett, and James Hetfield Outfits can be unlocked by progressing through the track. 

The Season 4 Festival Pass’ free reward track items and Premium Reward Track items are not exclusive to the Pass, and they may become purchasable in the Shop at a later date.

Fortnite Festival Season 4 pass

Look fit for battle on the Battle Stage. James, Lars, Kirk, and Robert are looking fiery with “Puppet Master” Outfits available in the Shop ‘til the bell tolls for Season 4.

Shred with the best with Puppet Master Kirk, be a warrior of the wastes as Puppet Master James, be on the beat as Puppet Master Robert, and bring percussive destruction with Puppet Master Lars

Metallica Jam Tacks

What’s more? These Jam Tracks from Metallica will also be in the Shop ‘til Season 4 ends:

  • Metallica – “Enter Sandman”
  • Metallica – “Fuel”
  • Metallica – “Master of Puppets”
  • Metallica – “Ride the Lightning”
  • Metallica – “The Unforgiven”
  • Metallica – “Wherever I May Roam”

General bug fixes and improvements

Lobby Jammin’

Your owned Jam Tracks can be equipped as Lobby Tracks! Try adding them to your Favorites, then hit Shuffle and enjoy a different groove each time you return to the Lobby.

Gameplay Improvements

We improved Fret Forgiveness (a.k.a. “coyote time”), increasing the time allowed between when you strum a note on Pro Lead/Pro Bass and when you need to press the correct fret input. Players who felt like they did the strum and fret inputs at the same time should now get credit when they do so, even if one comes slightly before the other.

Additionally:

  • We updated button bind visibility to be on by default for Pro song parts.
  • Your Strum bind will be visible on the HUD. (Only one Strum bind is visible, even though you can have two different binds. The other one is visible in your settings.)
  • You’ll be able to deploy Overdrive during “song breaks,” where you have extended time between notes.

Festival Questing

  • Quests for the Main Stage, Jam Stage, and new Battle Stage will all share categories. Daily Quests have been updated to include all three experiences.
  • You’ll be able to progress Jam Quests while Backstage when building your Main Stage setlist.
  • Many Main Stage Quests such as “Hit Notes” and “Deploy Overdrive” will also be completable on the Battle Stage.

Jam Track Changes

We’ve adjusted the following Jam Track song parts:

  • Doja Cat – Say So: Bass
    • Minor adjustments to improve consistency.
       
  • Epic Games – Streets Ignite: Lead
    • Minor adjustments to improve consistency.
       
  • Epic Games – Streets Ignite: Pro Lead
    • Fixed misplaced hammer-on and pull-off notes.
       
  • Kelly Clarkson – Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You): Pro Lead
    • Fixed misplaced hammer-on and pull-off notes.
       
  • Metallica – Fuel: Pro Lead
    • Removed a couple notes in a repeating riff for consistency.
       
  • Muse – Hysteria: Pro Lead
    • Adjusted to be more consistent with Pro Bass.
       
  • Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes: Pro Bass
    • Fixed certain hammer-ons that didn’t function as intended, and made minor adjustments.
       
  • Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock – It Takes Two: Drums
    • Added a missing kick.

That’s everything new coming with Fortnite Festival Season 4 which will end on August 16, 2024.