New season of Fortnite: Details on weapons, lawless map, and trailer

A new season of one of the most popular online games dropped Friday morning, Feb. 21, and "Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 6 Season 2: LAWLESS!" is introducing some new characters and weapons to the lineup.

Fortnite servers were down for a couple hours as Chapter 6, Season 1 went down around midnight MT, according to Forbes, but servers are typically down for several hours but were back up and running Friday morning.

Once you download the update, you'll be dropped into the new Chapter 6, Season 2: Lawless map, which was released on Fortnite's official Instagram page early Friday morning.

Here's everything to know about the new season of Fortnite:

Epic Games' servers went down early Friday morning as the developer made updates to Fortnite ahead of the launch of its new season after the previous one came to an official end.

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The outage was not due to an error but rather gave the developer time to adjust gameplay mechanics, introduce new features and fix any bugs that may have existed.

Epic Games said the servers were back up and running shortly after 7 a.m. Friday.

The 5-hour outage is typical, as past seasonal updates have also lasted for a few hours. However, there have been longer delays, like the one in March 2024, when Epic Games needed an additional eight hours to complete the job.

The game's famous seasonal system, Battle Pass, for Lawless will run through May 2.

The Dill Bits coin, is coming back, which has become even more valuable than Bars, according to the Fortnite team. Typically sealed behind lock and key in vaults around the Island, Dill Bits don’t carry over from match to match.

They can be spent at one of three Black Markets around the map.

Some new weapons include thermite, a powerful explosive found around the map. A rocket drill will also arrive later in the season. Other items include a new version of the assault rifle, sniper and shotgun.

Watch the Fortnite trailer below:

USA Today contributed to this story.

Natassia Paloma may be reached at [email protected], @NatassiaPaloma on Twitter; natassia_paloma on Instagram, and Natassia Paloma Thompson on Facebook.

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