Fortnite Players Have Created Their Own Makeshift Drones While Waiting For Season 3

Some Fortnite: Battle Royale players have found an interesting way to pass the time this past week while waiting for Season 3. After a bit of experimentation, they've created their own autonomous, free-flying drones that explode when they get close to another player. Here's how it works.

The method, originally pioneered by Reddit user Slushyguy, combines two in-game explosives, the proximity mine and remote explosives, by placing them both on an editable wall with the mine above the C4. Once both items are next to each other on the wall, players can edit the wall to remove its upper half using Fortnite's building tools. The proximity mine then falls on the C4 and starts to float forward.

"Imagine being some random person looting," Reddit user Jackson1013 wrote in Slushyguy's thread on Fortnite's battle royale subreddit. "You look up and see a fricking proximity mine and C4 flying over you. You think it's some visual glitch, but no, you just die."

Since Slushyguy shared his video last week, dozens of players have shared videos of themselves building them in combat to either surprise players or to try something less conventional. Twitter user Flowey used the harpoon gun to latch on to his drone and propel him off his tower, giving him a chance to land a tricky shot.

Fortnite's primary battle royale mode has come to a halt since Epic Games delayed the start of Season 3 twice, most recently due to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the country and world. Players have found ways to pass the time in all sorts of ways, with some designing a Team Fortress 2-esque payload mode in creative, recreating Super Mario 64, or trying to grief other players with these makeshift drones.

Fortnite players have always experimented with Epic's items in unconventional ways. One of the most infamous is rocket riding, where players jumped on top of remote controlled rockets to fly across the map, sometimes firing a second rocket while in the air to extend their joyride. Rocket riding eventually became impossible as the rockets were removed in an update.

Drones will probably have a short life span as well with Season 3 scheduled to start later this month on June 17, with the map-changing Doomsday happening on June 15. Players believe that the method will either be patched out or one of the items will get vaulted in favor of something new.