Unlike other games in the battle royale genre, Fortnite includes both shooting and building elements. If you want to survive to the end, and achieve victory royale, you need to perfect both of these systems. Whether you’re brand new to the game, or looking for ways to consistently survive longer, we’ve got 25 Fortnite: Battle Royale tips and tricks that you can use to improve your game: The playground mode uses the same map as Battle Royale, but without the pressures of the encroaching storm and other players trying to shoot you. Select the playground mode, set it to not fill the empty slots, and you can get yourself some much needed practice. Playground mode allows you to explore and build at your leisure, so you can get to know the island, learn how all the weapons work, and practice defensive and offensive building techniques in a low pressure environment. The safest bet is usually to wait toward the end of the battle bus route, and then aim for an unnamed location. Named locations tend to have better loot, which means more players, and more chances to get shot before you get the hang of things. Once you’re more confident in your skills, you can aim for more densely populated areas to rack up some early kills and stock up on higher quality loot. Your glider also deploys automatically once you reach a certain elevation. To take advantage of this mechanic, you need to aim for low ground and prevent your glider from deploying until the last possible moment. By getting on the ground faster, you’ll stand a better chance of finding some gear before one of your opponents can get the drop on you. If you can identify a gun on your way down, and make sure nobody else is heading for the same one, all the better. Use your pickaxe on everything you can, but make sure to keep an eye on your surroundings. You want to have as much wood, metal and brick on hand as you can, but demolishing stuff makes a lot of noise that other players are sure to hear. Chests are often hidden away in the attics and basements of buildings, and you may need to break walls, ceilings, or floors to find them. However, you’ll sometimes get lucky and find them laying around outside as well. In addition to chests, you’ll also find supply drops and llama pinatas that contain loot. Good guns, gun types you specifically need for your favored play style, and consumables that replenish health and armor should always have the highest priority.

Gray: Common weapons and items.Green: Uncommon weapons and items.Blue: Rare weapons and items.Purple: Epic weapons and items.Orange: Legendary weapons and items.

The general rule of thumb is that higher rarity weapons are more powerful and harder to find than lower rarity weapons. Learn the color codes, and make sure to grab any legendary and epic weapons that you come across. When you watch the best Fortnite players, it’s almost like they’re playing two different games at the same time. The building and the shooting aren’t separate systems, but completely dependent on each other. The best way to get good at building is to practice in Playground mode. After you’re confident in your ability to get basic structures out quickly, you can practice the same thing in Battle Royale mode.

Assault rifles: This versatile weapon type works well at both medium and close range. They can come with scopes, suppressors, and other modifications.Shotguns: The weapon of choice in close quarters, you’ll want to swap to your shotgun and move in aggressively if you hear an opponent nearby.Submachine guns: These put out good damage, but they’re inaccurate at any kind of distance.Pistols: You can snipe with a pistol if you absolutely need to, and they’re decent at medium range, but they tend to fire too slowly if you find yourself in a close quarters encounter.Sniper rifles: If you like to find a nice hiding spot and take people out from a distance, a good sniper rifle is a necessity. Just make sure you have a different weapon ready if someone sneaks up on you.Rocket and grenade launchers: These do a tremendous amount of damage per hit, so they’re good at destroying enemy forts. But they tend to reload slowly, and you don’t want to rely on one in a close range fight.Miniguns: These weapons pump out damage like crazy at close and medium range, but it takes a little bit of windup before they start firing. If your opponent hears and comes at you with a faster weapon, you’re toast.Crossbow: You may only run into this weapon type in Playground mode, because unlimited ammo and a high rate of fire makes it extremely powerful. If you do find one, pick it up and try it out.

Port-a-fort: This tool literally builds a fort for you, out of metal, almost instantaneously. This is great if you’re new and haven’t gotten used to building forts on the fly, and it’s also tremendously useful for mobile players.Rift-to-go: When you use this item, it creates a rift that teleports you into the sky and immediately opens your glider. The rift remains open briefly, so your squad, or your enemies, can follow you through, so be careful.Grappler: This is a gun that shoots a plunger tied to a rope, and you can use it to quickly cover long distances or scale tall buildings. If your opponent thinks they’re safe at the top of their fort, use your grappler to give them a surprise.

Grenade: This is the basic grenade type that explodes to cause area of effect damage, and not much else. If you find some, use them.Stink bomb: This creates a noxious yellow cloud when it explodes, which causes damage over time to anyone inside. The damage bypasses shields, so make sure you don’t get caught in the cloud yourself.Clinger: This is a sticky bomb that you can attach to buildings and other players.Boogie bomb: When hit by this grenade, players are forced to dance for five seconds. They are prevented from building or shooting, which can leave them vulnerable to attack.Shockwave grenade: These grenades create a shockwave that can knock players and objects back. If you time it just right, you can also use a shockwave grenade to get some serious air and deploy your glider.

Here are the main healing consumables:

Bandages and med kits: These items restore your health, which is represented by the green bar at the bottom of your screen. Med kits replenish more than bandages, so if you’ve only taken a little chip damage patch it up with bandages.Shield potions and small shield potions: These items restore your shields, which are represented by the bar immediately above your health. Two shield potions will completely fill the bar.Chug jug: This fully restores your health and shield, but it takes a full 15 seconds to consume. Make sure you’re in a safe spot before you use it.Slurp juice: This restores both health and shields, but it does it slowly over time.

Since players are less likely to have powerful weapons at the start of the game, and there are more unskilled players still alive, being aggressive early on can pay off. You’ll hear a lot of gunfire, and the sounds of pickaxes breaking stuff, but make sure to keep an ear out for doors opening and closing, and even footsteps, if you want to get the drop on your opponents. Some items, like the rift-to-go, make a lot of noise that can make it extremely easy to locate and shoot someone who has no real way to fight back. When you’re new, it pays to learn the more central areas first, because more matches will end up converging near the middle of the map than on the edges of the island. Just keep in mind that these areas tend to draw more interest, so if you drop there you’ll typically find yourself in the middle of a fight sooner rather than later. As people move toward the safe spot, terrain will tend to funnel them in certain directions, which leads to relatively predictable conflicts. If you can figure out where people are likely to be, based on the way the storm is contracting, you’ll be able to take advantage of that. If you have some healing items on hand, you can survive in the storm even longer. If your health and weapons are both in good shape, and you think you can get the drop on someone, go for it. In situations where you find two people engaged in a firefight, you may want to wait for one to emerge victorious, and pick off the other while they go for the loot. Just remember that someone else could have their eye on you at the same time. You can use shockwave grenades, jump pads, and even jump off tall buildings to activate your glider. You can also use this to your advantage by crouching, hiding behind terrain or objects, and rotating the camera so keep an eye on your surroundings without anyone being able to see you. If you’re not sure why you died, or how someone got the drop on you, jump into the replay system and check out exactly what happened. When playing in squads, it’s important to remember that the other players may also have squads backing them up, especially at the beginning of the match. You can use this to your advantage by not immediately killing downed players. Instead, keep an eye out for their teammates. If they go to save their friend, you can pick them off. If they come for you instead, having heard your gun, you can be ready to get the drop on them. When playing duos, you have to be even more wary, since it’s more likely that the players on each team are using voice communications. In solo play, you can typically afford to be more aggressive because nobody has anyone backing them up. The vending machines use building materials for currency, so remember to break enough stuff to afford the weapon or item that you want. Watching streamers like Ninja is a great way to learn more about how to approach different situations and improve your own game as a result. Just remember that streamers are often more aggressive than they really need to be, because it results in more exciting streams. Don’t hesitate to learn strategies from streamers, and adapt them for yourself, but sometimes staying hidden and waiting for the right moment to strike is the better option.