Season 7 of Fortnite began on December 6 and v7.0 patch notes have finally been released. In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about the new season.

Thursday’s v7.0 update will be the most important for the foreseeable future as Season 6 comes to an end and Season 7 begins. 

As fans around the world predicted, the key theme throughout the update is snow and ice, and Epic Games have done a brilliant job of bringing winter to life with numerous map changes!

Below, you can find information on all of the update’s key changes and features as well as the full patch notes.

Wraps and Planes

There’s also an all-new ‘X-4 Stormwing Plane’, which confirms our assumptions from the teaser images and can be viewed in all of it’s glory in the Season 7 trailer below:

According to Epic Games, players will be able to use the Stormwing to ‘control the skies alone or with your wingmen’, and yes, it can do barrel rolls!

• Read More: Fortnite Season 7: What’s included in the Battle Pass? Skins, Cosmetics, Trailer and more

Also new to the game are ‘Wraps‘. These wraps will allow you to apply a new look (camo/skin) to vehicles and even weapons. They’ll be unlocked through the Season 7 Battle Pass and will bring even more customization and color to the game!

Season 7 Battle Pass

Talking of the Battle Pass, it sounds like the Season 7 one will be full of interesting new cosmetics, items and more. Once again, there will 100 levels and over 100 rewards associated with the pass, which will cost a total of 950 V-Bucks. 

More information about the Battle Pass cosmetics, items and more, along with the trailer, can be found here.

Map Changes

The Iceberg biome isn’t the only snowy change to the map. The patch notes confirm that new locations named ‘Polar Peak’ and ‘Frosty Flights’ have also been added. 

That’s not all – another new location named ‘Happy Hamlet’ has arrived, and various other points of interest and spots of ice can be found around the map.

You can find out everything there is to know about the Season 7 map changes here.

Vaulted weapons and items

A whole host of weapons and items have been vaulted, including the Shadow Stones, Port-a-Fort and Double Barrel Shotgun. Surprisingly, though, the only new addition is the Stormwing plane. Balloons have also been reworked to prevent the use of other weapons and items while using them.

You can find out more about the vaulted items here.

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Below, you can find the patch notes in full! We’ll update this post with more information shortly.

GENERAL

• Updated the minimum macOS version required to run Fortnite on Mac to 10.13.6.
• Added some optimizations for when players build structures.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed daily Challenge text and some other text to properly switch when changing languages.
• Fixed a crash when terminating the game because of an error during initialization.
• Fixed a potential performance degradation when loading content.
• Modified the error window to use a scrolling region for overflowing text.

PERFORMANCE

• Improved the data layout on Xbox One to improve loading times generally and reduce building streaming issues in Battle Royale.

UI

• Made the Fortnite taskbar icon blink (Windows only) upon successfully entering a lobby after matchmaking if the application is minimized or inactive in the background.
• Minimized chat text on PC and Mobile is no longer clickable. Clicking the chat entry text box will still expand the chat text as normal.

BATTLE ROYALE

WEAPONS + ITEMS

• X-4 Stormwing Plane
  • 5 total seats.
    • Seats 4 passengers (on the wings) and a pilot.
  • Has a mounted machine gun. Be careful, it can overheat.
  • Players will go into the skydiving state when exiting the X-4 Stormwing.
  • Use the roll buttons for sharp turns.
    • Pressing both will fly upside down.
    • Double tapping roll buttons will do a barrel roll.
  • Can boost and airbrake for extra mobility.
• Balloons
  • Balloons have been reworked so that while they are equipped, it is possible to use weapons and items.
  • Players can attach up to 3 Balloons to their back, lifting off the ground when the 3rd Balloon is attached.
  • Press jump while in the air to release Balloons one at a time.
  • Reduced stack size from 20 to 10.
• Updated scope crosshair on Scoped AR and Thermal AR.
• Vaulted Items
  • Note: Each new season gives us an opportunity to evaluate the current item rotation. Our goal is to have a reasonable number of items to learn, while avoiding duplicates or overlapping functionality. Based on recent (and upcoming) item additions, we’ve selected the following for vaulting.
  • Shadow Stones
  • Port-a-Fort
  • Chiller
  • Clinger
  • Double Barrel Shotgun
  • Shockwave Grenade

GAMEPLAY

• Map Updated
  • New Biome: Iceberg
  • New Location: Frosty Flights
  • New Location: Polar Peak
  • New Location: Happy Hamlet
  • Other unnamed Points of Interest (POIs) have also appeared across the island.
  • Icy Surfaces can be found in snowy areas.
    • Players will slide on certain frozen surfaces.
  • Ziplines can be found around the Iceberg and near Expedition Outposts.
    • Latch on and zip from one end to the other.
    • Aim, fire, or use items all while conveniently traveling on Ziplines.
  • Minimap updated.
• Increased the chance of final circles ending on the outer edges of the map.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing weapon impact effects to play when shooting friendly players, even though no damage was being dealt.

EVENTS

• New Tournament: Explorer Pop-Up Cup
  • Material cap set to 700/500/300 for Wood/Stone/Metal.
  • Players receive 100/50/50 Wood/Stone/Metal on elimination.
  • Resource rate increased by 40%
  • +50 effective health on elimination.
  • Safezone Changes
    • Increased chances of Supply Drops in later circles.
    • Circle 9 now travels twice as far but takes twice as long to close.
• Some tournaments will now feature a limit on the number of matches that can be played during an event session.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which prevented players from receiving elimination rewards if a player they downed was eliminated by the Down-But-Not-Out timer ending or if their team was fully eliminated.

PERFORMANCE

• Optimized spawning pickups when a player is eliminated.
• Optimized the performance of the Dynamite fuse.
• Switch audio performance improvements – falling sounds no longer hitch.
• Minor Switch rendering optimizations to help general framerate.

AUDIO

• Reduced the volume of bullet and pickaxe impact audio on the starting island.
• Added a hit notification audio cue when a vehicle you’re riding in recieves damage.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would cause in-air glider audio to continue playing when eliminating a gliding player.
• Fixed an issue that would cause vehicle audio loops to get stuck on.
• Fixed “crackling” audio heard on Mobile/Switch when shooting weapons or emoting.

UI

• The Calamity, Dire, Ragnarok, and Drift Challenges have been moved to a new section at the bottom of the Challenges tab.
• Added filtering and updated the layout of the Locker.
• Vehicle Damage Numbers have been added!
  • Vehicles now have a unique damage number pop color and show damage numbers.
• Polished the Store layout to support a larger number of tiles without needing to scroll.
• Minor update to the player feedback UI to add reporting categories and a list of other players in the current or last-played match.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Battle Pass information from being displayed in the Lobby tab for players that have not purchased a Battle Pass.
• Fixed the header entry in the daily Challenges screen to work correctly when clicked.
• Moved the Nvidia Highlights button to the top right of the Battle Royale lobby to avoid conflicts with chat click zone.
• Fixed an issue where the Two Factor Authentication screen could sometimes cause input to become unresponsive.

REPLAY

Bug Fixes

• Nameplates will no longer sit above other HUD elements, such as the map.

MOBILE

• 60 FPS enabled on the iPad Pro 2018.
• 4x MSAA Anti-Aliasing turned back on for iOS.
• Improved performance on all Galaxy Note 9 devices as well as the North American variant of the Galaxy S9 Plus.
• Added support for the Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the black border on the iPad Pro 2018.
• Fixed graphics settings on previous supported iPad Pro models.
• Fixed incorrect quality settings for iPad 6th Generation.
• Fixed occasional shadow flickerings in the game lobby. 

CREATIVE

This is an early release so you may experience client crashes, loss of progress, or other unexpected errors.

OVERVIEW

• Creative Hub provides access to your own island, the islands of other friends who have joined on the server, or featured islands selected from the community.
• Player Islands are your creative space that automatically saves.
• Players will be able to keep a server active for up to 4 hours at a time.
• Battle Pass owners will start with 4 islands to allow for different creations. On December 13, all players will receive 4 islands.
• Friends can visit your island and island owners can set permissions to determine if your friends can edit/build while visiting.
  • The My Island menu is accessible through the Main Menu in-game while on your island.  

GAMEPLAY

• Phone
  • This is the in-game tool your character holds that’s used to edit, copy, and manipulate props in the world. Experiment with its features to discover all the things it can do.
• Fly mode allows players to quickly travel around their island and create in mid-air.
  • Double jump to start flying.
• My Island menu
  • The “Game” tab starts and stops player-created games. When a game is stopped your island reverts to its pre-game state.
    • You may experience functionality issues with this feature as we continue to make improvements.
  • The “Game Settings” tab sets health, fall damage, spawn location, etc and can be changed at any time through the My Island menu.
  • The “Island Tools” tab resets your island back to its original state and sets who can build on your island.

CREATIVE INVENTORY

• Accessed from the inventory menu.
• Inventory allows you to spawn prefabs, devices, weapons, or consumables.
• Use Inventory to create your own chests or llamas for your island filled with items you select.
• Prefabs are pre-made structures the player can place on their island with throwables.
• Devices are placeable items that allow you to create games.

PREFABS

• 8 obstacle courses
• 25 buildings from Battle Royale
• 34 galleries of building tiles and props

DEVICES

• New Devices
  • Ice Block
  • Damage Rails
  • Speed Boost
  • Timer
  • Scoreboard
  • Player Spawn
• From Battle Royale:
  • Spikes
  • Chiller 
  • Bouncer
  • Launch Pad
  • Mounted Turret
  • Cozy Campfire

PERFORMANCE

• The memory bar at the bottom of the HUD provides feedback on how much you can build on your island.
  • This will change as we gather more data on performance and memory usage.

SOCIAL

• Players will have the ability to join in progress games with any of their Epic friends, even if they are not in a party together. Find your friend in the social panel and select Join Creative Server. Your friend must have their Privacy option set to Friends or Public to allow those who aren’t in a party to join.

REPLAY

• Replays will record the entire 4-hour play session, however, these will be saved in 30-minute individual files.
  • Replays are off by default and can be enabled in the settings.

MOBILE

• Creative buttons added as well as a new “Creative” visibility setting. Buttons with extra functionality are in the HUD Layout Tool.
  • The “Creative” visibility is off in the tool by default, so buttons will be hidden until they are turned on.