'The floor is lava' among a dozen temporary game modes coming to Fortnite soon

Fortnite Battle Royale's stream of temporary game modes looks set to continue flowing—Epic will add five to the game within the next month and at least five more soon after, it said yesterday. One of the first five will be a reworked version of the 50v50 game mode it first introduced in December, but the other four will be new, and they include a mode that reduces the size of the map by limiting the drop zone to within the first circle.

Other than those two, players can expect a blitz mode with shorter rounds, a mode that has less time between circles and one with "team sizes in between 50v50 and squads". Epic is planning to "quickly spin up a dozen or so limited time modes", it said in a blog post, including one called 'The Floor is Lava' (which, incidentally, is the name of the next playstyle I'm testing out in a series of articles about the shooter). Presumably, you won't be able to touch the ground, so building will be paramount.

Elsewhere in the blog post, the team mentioned that they will soon remove the SMG from the game, possibly permanently, as they test new weapons. The team is also changing the way that audio works: instead of hearing sounds in your headset based on where the camera is looking, you'll hear based on the direction your character is facing (apparently players were confused about the sounds of chests dipping in and out as they swung the camera round). 

Building will sound different, too, with more emphasis on the initial placement of structures. Epic says you will "hear a steady 'chunk, chunk, chunk' as [enemies] place the structures", which presumably means that it'll be quieter than normal after you've started the process.

If you're interested in hearing more explanation for the ongoing connection issues the game has been experiencing, or want to learn about about future social changes (including a "Looking for Group" feature), then head over to the full post.