The latest update to Fortnite is live today, and it allows players to share a drink in a rather unconventional fashion with the introduction of the new Chug Splash consumable item. The six-pack of tasty canned beverages can be hurled at your teammates, splashing its rejuvenating contents in a small area of effect and granting 20 health to injured allies and 20 shield to those already at full health. It can also be used to extend the countdown to death for knocked-down players, but be careful where you fling it, as it can heal enemy players as well.
The update also removes the delay for shotgun swapping (as long as you don’t have multiple shotguns in your inventory) and nerfs the combat shotgun’s effectiveness at medium and long range. There’s also a handful of new features for the game’s creative mode, plus a new Storm Shield Defense mission for Save the World, the details of which you can check out in the full patch notes.
Meanwhile, dataminers eager to dig into the game’s files and figure out what’s next for Epic’s popular free-to-play shooter seem to be having a tough time of it as of late. According to a report from Polygon, some prominent dataminers say that Epic has begun to step up its anti-datamining game by “encrypting some information relating to things like cosmetics.” In the past, dataminers have been able to forecast everything from upcoming cosmetic-item additions to the outcomes of in-game events (such as the destruction of Tilted Towers some time back), but Epic now seems determined to keep future surprises under wraps.
