Fortnite 11.40 Update patch notes – Sidegrading, Heavy Assault Rifle, more

Epic Games have finally released the v11.40 update for Fortnite Chapter 2: Season 1, which is now live on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices.

For fans of the popular battle royale game, it’s been a long wait for the latest update to the game. Usually, Epic Games release some kind of patch every week either in the form of a full or smaller content update, but the last time the game received any love was on December 18 with the v11.31 patch, just days before the developers went on their Christmas break.

With the festive season now over, Epic are back at work providing new updates for the game, with the first of 2020 coming in the form of the v11.40 patch which officially goes live on Wednesday, January 15. With almost a month between patches, the v11.40 update may be one of the biggest since the release of Chapter 2, since the devs have a lot of catching up to do in terms of adding new content, making changes, and implementing fixes.

Epic Games

Fortnite fans have been forced to wait for the v11.40 Update.

Sidegrading & Heavy Assault Rifle

One of the things that set Fortnite apart from other battle royale titles in its early days was the constant stream of new weapons and items, and it appears Epic Games have decided to offer players an updated version of the Heavy Assault Rifle. Dataminers had found details of the weapon in the game’s files back in November, and some even found ways to use it in Creative Mode before it made it to the live servers.

Players won’t be finding the weapon inside Chests or Loot Crates though, as players will need to use a new system called “Sidegrading.” To do this, players will need to take their Assault Rifle to one of the Workbenches found across the map, where they’ll be able to turn it into the Heavy AR by offering some materials in return.

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The Heavy Assault Rifle certainly packs a punch, dealing 46 damage to opponents per bullet, with a magazine size of 25 which means you have plenty of chances to hit your shots as you attempt to wipe out opponents and claim a Victory Royale.

Bug Fixes

With Epic Games gone for almost a month, it’s no surprise that a number of bugs and glitches have appeared in the game, leaving Fortnite fans frustrated as they wait on fixes to come.

One of the most frustrating was with the Remedy vs Toxin Mission, as the challenge which asked players to visit three bus stops was broken, with many of these locations in the game not counting towards the completion of the task. Thankfully, Epic have addressed this so that the problem should no longer affect players.

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On top of that, Epic have also looked at an issue that players were suffering from when editing quickly, which left them stuck in Edit mode even if they weren’t actually editing anything.

• All bus stops now count towards completion of the “Visit different bus stops” Overtime Challenge – Remedy vs Toxin.
• Editing quickly no longer causes players to remain in Edit mode when they’re not editing anything.

Fortnite v11.40 Update patch notes

The following information has been confirmed to be in v11.40 via the official Fortnite Trello page. We will post the full patch notes here following the update if they do get released.

GENERAL

• Fixed issue causing players on console to get stuck and not be able to progress through the gifting process if they do not have 2-Factor Authentication.

BATTLE ROYALE

• Fixed issue causing players’ Star Wars Legacy entries to have disappeared.
• Fixed issue causing ‘F’ key to not allow proper movement after direction is remapped from a non-‘F’ key.
• Falling into a Hideout (haybale, dumpster, port-a-potty) while holding a Sniper Rifle no longer causes the crosshairs to disappear.
• The Spectrum Contrail again changes colors while in motion.
• Continued to make improvements regarding FPS drops and hitching on mobile devices. 
• Resolved an issue involving mobile players getting stuck in a loop on the Select Fire Mode screen.
• Resolved an issue involving console players being unable to progress through the gifting process if they did not have Two-Factor Authentication enabled.

CREATIVE MODE

• Fixed issue causing Featured Island portals to not work correctly.
• Bandage Bazooka now respects the infinite ammo and reload settings applied by a game.

MOBILE

• Fixed issue causing players to become stuck in a loop on the Select Fire Mode screen.