Time-saving Fortnite Season 3 exploit lets you quickly upgrade weapons

Brad Norton
Fortnite Weapon Upgrade Bench

Upgrading weapons in Fortnite Season 3 takes more than just your building materials, as it often takes quite a big amount of time away from looting. However, a new trick can help speed up the process.

Bumping your lower-tier weapons up to powerful Epic or Legendary gear can often be the deciding factor in close matchups. That little bit of extra damage could be just enough to close out an elimination and help secure a victory.

Unfortunately, Upgrade Benches can take quite a while to boost your weapons. Shifting from Epic to Legendary can take over 10 seconds alone. That is more than enough time for enemies to get closer and potentially take you out of the fight.

A newly discovered trick from ‘kewalts’ looks to rush through this timely process, however. Speeding the upgrades considerably and getting you back in the fight faster than ever before. Here’s how it all works.

While standing at an Upgrade Bench and holding down your interact button, you’ll want to start on a lower-tier weapon to boost your higher-tier weapons. For instance, if your loadout consists of an Uncommon Shotgun and an Epic SMG, begin with the Shotgun in the Bench.

As this faster upgrade plays out, wait until the final moment before quickly swapping to your higher-tier weapon. If you execute this swap at the perfect time, your Epic SMG will turn into a Legendary in just a matter of seconds.

In fact, this method is 12 seconds faster than the standard means of upgrading. Shifting from Epic to Legendary will still use the same amount of building materials, however, so don’t expect to cheat the system in more ways than one.

This method works for every weapon type across the board. So long as you practice with the timing, you should be able to use the trick quite effectively in competitive games.

Fortnite characters shooting
Your whole squad could use this trick on repeat to quickly upgrade loadouts.

While the discovery was met with praise by the Fortnite community, there’s a good chance that it won’t be in-game for long. Obviously this is not an intended trick. It’s not necessarily ‘game-breaking’ like other issues in Season 3, though it does still impact the overall experience.

Epic Games is yet to comment on the matter, though it’s likely we see Upgrade Benches tweaked in the next update. Until then, be on the lookout for players upgrading their weapons faster than ever before.