Skip to main content

Play cowboy in the new limited-time ‘Fortnite’ Wild West mode

Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’re like most of us, you’ve been playing a whole lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 over the last few weeks, and you might have even been playing around with the outlaw Ashe in Overwatch. Now, Fortnite has you covered on the Wild West front, too, with its new limited-time mode.

Wild West mode, introduced in a content update for 6.30, plays out like a standard battle royale match, but all of your gear will be Wild West themed. This means you will be using the Hunting Rifle, Pump Shotgun, Double-Barrel Shotgun, and Six Shooter only, rather than the full lineup of weapons available in other modes. Alongside that, you have access to the Campfire, Bandages, Medical Kits, and Slurp Juice.

Recommended Videos

A new weapon, the Dynamite, was released as part of the update as well, but it has already been disabled due to issues with the game’s stability. It seems dynamite can destroy a whole lot more than just in-game structures!

Image used with permission by copyright holder

When the Dynamite is back for good, it will deal 70 damage to players and 800 damage to structures, and its explosion will take the form of a flat cylinder. You will have just five seconds to take cover after throwing it.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

The update adds the Scavenger Pop-Up Cup Duos, as well, which reduces the material cap from 500 to 300 and decreases the radius of the third and fourth circles considerably. Circle four will appear “partially outside the previous safe zone,” and Circle 9 will travel twice as far but will have its speed halved.

For the competitive Fortnite scene, you have the chance to win a ton of money in Epic Games’ latest competitive. The Winter Royale Online Tournament will kick off in December and will feature a solo competition split between qualifiers and finals. $1 million in prizes will be available during the tournament, and you can try to get into it by performing well during special qualifier days. The open qualifiers begin on November 24, and the finals for Europe and North America will start on December 1 and December 11, respectively.

Fortnite is available with cross-play support on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Lego Fortnite is getting a massive update, including a new game mode
Characters fishing in LEGO Fortnite.

Fortnite's various Lego modes have been around for just under a year, but they remain some of the most popular choices for players. With the one-year anniversary coming up, Epic Games announced a series of significant changes coming to the game type.

To begin with, Lego Fortnite will be renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. That's because Lego Fortnite will become the hub for anything Lego-related within the Fortnite ecosystem and provide players with an easy way to start up any Lego game mode.

Read more
Fortnite faces community backlash over the addition of bots in OG mode
Fortnite battle bus.

The recent launch of Fortnite OG shot the battle royale title back up the top of the charts, not that it ever really loosened the chokehold it has on the gaming community — and then the launch of the game's first-person mode further stoked the flames. One recent change is not as welcome, however. Fortnite recently shared a post on X detailing the addition of Duos mode, as well as "matchmaking improvements in all Fortnite OG playlists." That doesn't sound like a red flag ... until you read the comment section of the post.

Fortnite OG playlists just received bots, and players are taking that change about as well as they took the addition of No Build mode. In other words, it created a heck of a lot of controversy. The new bots aren't overly aggressive, and therein lies the issue: They present no challenge. Player complaints are that the bots move slowly, make decisions that get them killed, and much more, according to PCGamesN.

Read more
Fortnite is finally getting a first-person mode next week
Key art for Fortnite's new first person shooter mode Ballistic.

Fortnite Ballistic, the long-awaited first-person mode for Epic Games' hit battle royale shooter Fortnite, will finally come to the game on December 11.

Epic Games first teased a first-person Fortnite mode in March, but now we have a clearer idea of how it will play. Ballistic is a round-based 5v5 mode with no respawns, similar to competitive shooters like Valorant or Spectre Divide. A team of attackers fights to plant and detonate a Rift Point Device in certain spots on the map, while defenders fight to eliminate the other team before they can do the same. While attackers and defenders will swap their roles after six rounds, Ballistic matches are a best-of-seven affair across both ranked and unranked play.

Read more