Fortnite Battle Royale beginner's tips

Nearly ten months after its release, Fortnite Battle Royale continues to be a massive success. With the debut of Season 5 on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, and mobile, it seems that players can't get enough of its vibrant take on the battle royale genre.

But if you're reading this, chances are you're a newcomer who has taken interest in the game and wants to know what it takes to do well. The Season 5 update revamps the game's map and introduces some new mechanics, such as Rifts that teleport you high up into the air, but the core mechanics of the game remain unchanged.

While you might be familiar with the battle royale games, Fortnite is a bit different. The game continues with the last-player standing format, but adds its own twist that changes everything: you can instantly build walls and stairs, allowing you create fortifications to protect yourself.

1. Loot hard, loot fast

The action in Fortnite Battle Royale is fast and if you want to survive the early part of the game you need to loot up as fast as you can. The easiest way to do this is to jump out of the bus at the first chance, skydive straight down at maximum speed and land in the first spot you can with signs of buildings.

The first priority is always to get a weapon in your hands. After that, you'll want either a shield or a healing item in case things go south. Don't skip anything in the early stages, any weapon is better than no weapon. A pistol will still execute a kill faster than hacking at someone with your default pickaxe (which only deals 10 points of damage per hit).

You'll really want the weapons with the colored hazes (green, purple, blue or gold), but only swap into these, never hold out thinking you'll find one soon. You may not get the chance.

2.Pick Your Landing Zone And Avoid Other Players

Fortnite: Battle Royale starts with 100 players dropping out of a vehicle (in this case, a flying bus) onto an island below that's littered with weapons. Check your map at the outset and watch the flight path carefully--where you land is your first big decision in Fortnite, and it can help you get off to a fighting start.

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Your first order of business is weapons, and if you're new to the game, you'll also want to try to avoid other players. Weapons are mostly found inside buildings, so pick a drop location with a few structures, but try to avoid major settlements or towns along the flight path early on.

Those places have great gear, but also attract a ton of players; you'll want to avoid a fight straight off until you've gotten a little more comfortable with the game.

3. Consider a 'long drop'

The map on Fortnite Battle Royale is pretty small considering there are 100 players on it at a time. The latest update added plenty more built-up areas to loot in, but these are also the hotspots. You'll find the best loot but also more players in the early stages, increasing your chances of elimination. Especially if they're under the flight path of the Battle Bus.

Your glider gives you the ability to reach almost anywhere on the map. You might consider floating over to the other side of the island before dropping down to loot up, especially while you're still learning the game.

The only way to practice combat is to get involved in fights, but it can be disheartening to lose within seconds of landing time after time while you're a newcomer.

4.Gather Resources First

When you first land on the island in Fortnite: Battle Royale, you'll be armed only with your melee pickaxe. You can fight people with it... but that's not especially effective, and will get you killed against pretty much any other weapon.

The pickaxe's main use is for bashing through structures and gathering resources, the latter of which is one of the first things you want to do--provided you're far enough from other people that it won't immediately draw attention.

Breaking up anything causes a commotion; for instance, you might destroy some vehicles to get a decent bounty of metal, but you risk triggering its alarm and broadcasting your location to other players.

To start: Smash walls, structures, and (especially) trees, and gather yourself at least 300 units of wood. This will supply you with key materials that can keep you alive. If you switch to the building menu, you'll see that you can cycle through a few structures, like floors, roofs, walls, and stairs.

5. Never. Stop. Moving

Camping might work in PUBG, it rarely does in Fortnite. If you stand still for even a second too long, you're dead. No exaggeration.

Whether you're reloading, healing or attacking someone, move as much as you can. Small movements on the spot while you're healing make you more difficult for snipers to hit. Jumping while you're in a gunfight will increase your chances of survival. A moving target is more difficult to hit than a stationary one.

Always be aware of your surroundings, including what's above you. Because Fortnite Battle Royale includes building mechanics, a popular tactic to get the edge on opponents is to build up above them, attacking from above.

It gives the element of surprise and often leaves you completely helpless. You also don't have a free-look in Fortnite as you do in PUBG, so you can't keep running forwards while looking all around you.

6.Keep Quiet

The large scope of Fortnite: Battle Royale's island means that players can spread out quite a bit. Finding other people and avoiding detection are two of your main concerns in a given match, because it's easy to get ambushed or taken out from afar.

Especially as matches go on and the play area contracts, you'll be closer to players--and they'll be able to hear you moving around, building, and shooting. Sound and silence are essential tools to victory, and good speakers or headphones is highly recommended to help you get a bead on what's happening around you and locating the source of sounds.

Running is a noisy way to move around, and sprinting is even louder, and even kicks up some dust behind you. You can reduce your movement sounds by crouching and moving more slowly, but note that even rotating your character creates the sound of footsteps.

7.Balance your inventory

You only have five slots to fill with combined weapons and healing items such as medkits, bandages, shield potions, the Chug Jug and Slurp Juice. When looting, do everything you can to keep a balance.

When you pick up your first couple of shield potions, consume it and free up the inventory slot. It means you can carry another one then for when it gets depleted. Prioritise medkits over bandages, and the Chug Jug is the holy grail since it will refill all your health and your shield at once.

Try to carry a range of weapons, too. You ideally need something for short-range engagements, such as a tactical shotgun. For mid-range engagements, an assault rifle is best, while for long-range try and get hold of a sniper or an assault rifle with a scope. Only these two types of weapon allow you to scope in, all others remain in third-person view at all times.

8.Drink Shield Potions As Soon As You Find Them

Health in Fortnite: Battle Royale is divided into two types: your player health, which is a green bar on the bottom of your screen, and your shield, which is a blue bar--each topping out at 100 points. Shield depletes before health, and when your health is gone, you're dead. You won't start the match with a shield, however, so you'll have to find one.

Treasure chests are the places where you'll often find health items--and in particular, blue shield potions. These take up a space in your limited inventory, and since you won't start the match with a shield, it's usually best to drink these as soon as you find them, as your shield lasts until it takes damage.

Shield potions come in two types. Larger shield potions give you 50 shield points, and can be stacked twice to double your health; smaller shield potions give you 25 shield. Only the larger potions can push you up to 100, though: If you use two small shield potions, you'll top out at 50 shield points.

9. Try playing with some friends

The solo queue is hard, and brutal. Playing by yourself against 99 other players is tough, so if you're learning the game you might benefit from playing with some friends in either duo or squad mode.

In these modes you get knocked down before being killed, giving your friends chance to revive you for another go. It's also nice to have more eyes on the surroundings and more guns in the battles.

You can play squads without friends by selecting the auto-fill option. This will pair you with three strangers, so you might not have as much success, but you may also not die so quickly.

10.Be Careful When Looting Defeated Players

Fights in Battle Royale games are almost always close calls that fill you with adrenaline, and taking down another player always comes with a rush of relief. Don't let your guard down, though; every time you fire your gun, you announce yourself, and the loot that players drop when they die makes those locations targets for other players. Immediately after winning a fight is when you need to be extra-careful.

Instead of rushing up to a dead player and going through all their gear (which can leave you very vulnerable), it's often better to take a beat, grab cover, and survey the situation. Other players might be attracted to the gunfire or spot the loot as you're on your way to grab it, allowing them to get the drop on you. Similarly, you might be able to use the dead player's loot to get the drop on them.

Being careful is key to survival in Fortnite: Battle Royale--so play smart, and always expect another player lurking nearby. The same goes for the supply drops, which occasionally get ejected into the sky by the party bus as it flies overhead. The drops have great loot, but almost always attract a lot of attention, so approach them carefully.