Update, December 11: Fortnite’s magical sword has arrived.
The Fortnite sword first teased yesterday has arrived in-game, bestowing its holder with special abilities. The Infinity Blade can be found at the battle royale’s Polar Peak location in the new Iceberg biome, but surprisingly won’t be part of a limited-time mode.
The Blade is pretty similar to the Infinity Gauntlet, an item that was available for a limited period after the release of Avengers: Infinity War. Picking it up transformed the player into Marvel bad guy Thanos, granting significant powers, but you had to opt into the game mode. By contrast, the Infinity Blade is available in the normal battle royale mode.
Only one sword will spawn in in each match, and picking it up will cause you to drop all of your weapons. The first person to pull it from its pedestal will be healed to full health and shields, which are both boosted to 200 as soon as you pick the weapon up. Health and shields will also regenerate over time while you hold the sword, and you’ll recover 50 HP with each kill you get. But that’s not all.
While holding the Fortnite sword, you’ll also move more than twice as fast as normal, and can deal a powerful sword slash dealing 75 damage to enemies and destroying any structure instantly. On top of that, you’ll be able to leap huge distances using alternate fire, blasting through structures and dealing AoE damage as you land.
As an LTM, this wouldn’t be at all out of place – as I mentioned above, it’s basically happened before. But as part of a normal game mode this is an odd choice, giving one player an enormous advantage over everyone else. It’ll draw a huge amount of attention to the new biome, admittedly, but it won’t necessarily make for great gameplay across the map.
Coming soon… a weapon fit for a King 🗡👑 pic.twitter.com/n3kMDCS5IH
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) December 10, 2018
The new weapon is explored further in the Fortnite Patch 7.1 notes. The latest update brings explosion damage to passengers of the X-4 Stormwing, and also brings the Jetpack back in the return of the Close Encounters LTM.