New audio improvements are coming to Fortnite: Battle Royale in the next game update, developer Epic Games revealed in a post on Reddit.
An audio team developer called Seth said that Epic is noticing that players have been talking a lot about sound and audio in general since season eight was released. Because of this, he shared a bit about what will be improved in future updates—even as soon as the upcoming patch.
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The main update that should have an impact on Fortnite gameplay is the sound of footsteps. The first change is that footsteps above and below players will now blend in two layers instead of “abruptly switching between them,” which should make it sound clearer where your opponents are moving toward. The other change is that players should now be able to hear opponents who have line-of-sight on them, even when this opponent’s footsteps should be muffled or occluded.
Another important adjustment for gameplay is the increase in the volume of a building piece destruction when made by an opponent. That means if someone shoots your wooden wall down with a Hand Cannon or any other gun, you’ll be able to hear it louder than before and detect clearly when your building is being destroyed.
Some minor tweaks to Fortnite’s sound are also coming, like a noise reduction in the Assault Rifle sound so it’s not “overbearing to the shooter.” That means you’ll likely get to keep your hearing after you play with an AR from now on, instead of having to stand its loud sounds. Seth tried to describe the difference in sound with his writing, saying the team is tightening the sounds so that the AR sound is “more of a BLaaam versus a BLAAAM.”
Regardless of what exactly all this “blam” means, players should see this and other sound adjustments coming to Fortnite as soon as this week. Seth didn’t specify if these changes are coming all at once, so players should be patient while the developer works things out for this week’s Fortnite update.
