Epic Games Adjusts the Storm in Fortnite to Allow Players to Escape More Easily

Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 is now underway. It brought a ton of new changes, including new movement mechanics that seem to favor more strategic gameplay over sheer speed. As a result of these adjustments, players are having a hard time escaping the "Storm" in the game, which prompted Epic Games to do something about it.

Escape More Easily

The Storm in Fortnite is an important mechanic in Battle Royale Mode where the island is slowly engulfed in a damaging field of storms. The field gets smaller and smaller as time progresses, so players must go inward to avoid taking damage. This is a necessary thing to do to prevent matches from taking too long to finish.

In the past, players did not have any problems with it because the overall character movement was smooth and fluid. However, Epic Games has implemented major changes to the game's movement mechanics, which seemingly made it hard for people to avoid the storm. To address this, the company made a couple of adjustments implemented via a recent patch to give players more time to escape.

In a recent tweet via the Fortnite Status account, the first and second storm circles now take 20 seconds longer to close. This should allow players to get out of the way and continue slaying their opponents. The company added that it will monitor the Storm data and will make further adjustments if necessary.

We've heard some feedback from players saying that the storm is harder to escape since Chapter 5 Season 1 launch, so we've decided to make some balance adjustments:

⛈️ Storm Circles 1 & 2 now take 20 seconds longer to close.

We'll continue to monitor our Storm data and make…
— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) December 4, 2023

Movement Broken?

While it is admirable that the company addressed the issue with storm circles just a few days after Chapter 5 went live, it appears that Epic Games still has a lot on its plate when it comes to fixing bugs.

Fortnite players went to X/Twitter to share that movement is seemingly broken after the last patch. According to Twitter user @caltay05, pressing multiple buttons on a mouse and keyboard plugged into a console prompted their character to do the wrong things.

Another user said that running after initiating a slide would occasionally result in their characters getting stuck, but their stamina keeps on draining. This is seconded by another player. "Same here. Xbox series X. I've also had the same issue with running. My character has what seems like a seizure before it puts me in a squat position after I slide or from a walk. The issue is most noticeable when I go into/out of a slide," they said.

Although Epic Games acknowledged that the new movement mechanics will take some time to get used to, some players took it upon themselves to fix the clunkiness of moving and strafing in Fortnite, at least somewhat.

User @kevinsmak posted a video with settings that may improve the experience for some users on PC. They said that players can use "Custom Diagonals" under "Keyboard Movement" in the settings and adjust the following:

Forward Diagonal Angle: 52
Strafe Angle: 76
Backward Diagonal Angle: 135

Of course, it is up to Epic Games to make significant changes to the movement mechanics in the game, but this could be a temporary solution for those who do not like how character movement feels at the moment.

What do you think about the recent adjustments made to the storm circles in Fortnite?