Aiming to improve the gameplay experience, Epic deployed a number of updates to Fortnite’s movement mechanics in the past few weeks, and if you’re wondering what these changes did, allow me to explain.
Chapter five, season one of Fortnite kicked off on Dec. 2, 2023, after the record-breaking Big Bang season-end event concluded, and it brought “improved animations” to offer “smoother gameplay.” This was a movement update to offer players a better visual experience. Epic also attached a video to show the improvement in its blog post. While it seemed an excellent update from the video, players soon realized how odd it felt in practice. Well, it appears Epic felt the pressure, now that it has released a new update on Dec. 19 that promises to fix what went wrong earlier.
Fortnite movement updates in Chapter five: What changed recently?
The first movement update in Fortnite’s Chapter five came on Dec. 2, bringing the power of Motion Matching and Procedural Layering to Battle Royale players across all platforms. As mentioned in the official blog post, support for these features was added to offer “improved animations for things like transitioning from walking to running, changing directions, and using a weapon.” Here’s the video comparing the movement from before the update to after:
While it looks great in the video, in practice, it made moving around a lot slower and almost eliminated the feeling of sprinting in certain cases, contradicting Epic’s original intention with the update. It messed up Fortnite’s experience for many, especially those who prefer the Build mode.
After days of complaints pouring in, Epic has finally looked into the matter and patched things up for good. According to what will be Fortnite’s last patch notes for 2023, as of Dec. 19, movement speed has been increased when crouching and running. In addition, the camera movement has been reduced, and the change in view while sprinting has been adjusted to promote smoother gameplay. You’ll also see updated movement animations to accommodate the speed changes. Here’s a video of what the Fortnite movement looks like after the latest update:
If you ask me, the movement looks much smoother and more well-adjusted than what it was after the Chapter five update dropped on Dec. 2. Sprinting feels natural as well.
Note that Epic has reset the Custom Diagonal Movement settings to get all players adjusted to the new movement update in Fortnite. So make sure to check your settings and tune it as you need before you hop into a match.
