Fortnite 5.40 Update Notes: Revolver Vaulted, New Grappler Gun, AR Buffed

Fortnite update 5.40 is finally with us and we’ve been waiting for a while as some of the changes were teased as early as last week. Like Epic’s Eric Williamson said, the revolver has indeed been vaulted, much to the relief of almost everyone who plays Fortnite because there was nothing worse than having a common revolver as your only weapon at the start of a game. What other changes are there? Read on to be enlightened.

Grappler Gun

The grappler gun is here! After it was teased in the video last week many players expected to see motorbikes wheelie onto the Fortnite island but alas, we’ve been granted a plunger on a rope instead. It doesn’t sound exciting but when you see it in action, you’ll definitely change your mind.

It sticks to any flat surface and has 15 uses before it breaks and is removed from your inventory. Those 15 are more than enough to take you to great heights however as you swing through the tower blocks of Tilted Towers and spray people down with your trusty drum gun. It’s epic rarity so you won’t be finding them everywhere, but in the new Getaway LTM, you’re guaranteed to find one in each of the 12 red supply drops in each match.

Burst Assault Rifle

In a much needed change to bring the burst assault rifle up to the same level as its automatic counterpart, it’s been significantly buffed. When you hold the trigger down, the first two bursts are now much more accurate, as is the spread of the weapon when sprinting, falling/jumping, and aiming down sights. When crouching however, it’s been very slightly nerfed. The specific values can be found in the full patch notes we’ve linked at the bottom of the page.

Rarity Adjustments

There’s been a number of rarity changes for items too. Remote explosive and port-a-forts have switched rarity to epic and rare respectively, while the semi-auto sniper has changed from epic and legendary to uncommon and rare. Dual pistols have decreased one tier to rare and epic, as has the suppressed pistol.

A few guns have been completely removed too. The rare pistol no longer exists and neither does the legendary bolt-action. The common suppressed SMG is gone, as is the rare rocket launcher. To compensate for the removal of the rare rocket launcher, the drop rate for both the epic and legendary variants has increased by 18.57% and 2.05% respectively.

On top of all of those rarity changes, a few items have had their stack sizes altered. Big shield potions can now be carried three at a time, you can carry six stink bombs, and boogie bombs drop in stacks of two rather than one.

That’s not all either, as there’s plenty of bug fixes and minor alterations to be seen. For example, you can now pick exactly which emote you use in the lobby rather than it automatically selecting the first one. Of course, the other big gameplay change is that when the storm gets incredibly small, the player built structures by the edge are now destroyed too. You can read up on all of that and more in Epic’s official patch notes found here.

In other Fortnite news, pets may be coming to the game soon! Find out more on that and all the leaked skins and emotes with this latest update here.

(All images courtesy of Epic Games.)