Before you can battle a wave of zombie monsters in a Fortnite match, your group of Heroes will first have to explore a randomized map with varying objectives and loads of potential loot.
While your first inclination may be to run straight to the objective and get started fighting undead, always resist this urge! If you want the best card drops and the most efficient base defenses, your group needs to properly search for secrets across the map and spend time gathering resources.
Below we cover everything you need to know during the map exploration phase. Need help with other aspects of Fortnite? Be sure to check out our Fortnite guides:
- Fortnite Class Guide
- Fortnite Beginner’s Guide to Defending Storm Shields
- Fortnite Complete Guide to Classes
Getting Higher Level Loot in Fortnite
Take your time and fully explore the map to find everything before completing the starting objective that initiates the zombie horde. Everyone on the team will get much better loot this way and be more prepared taking this route rather than rushing straight towards the objective and starting the battle.
For every Badge you earn and bonus objective your team completes, the level of your loot box at the end of the quest will increase. When you hit loot box level 4 or above, the real goods start to be unloaded; you’ll soon be flooded with awesome schematics and rare Heroes. Make sure to always strive for these objectives:
- Exploration Badge for revealing 100% of the map (hit M to see what hasn’t been revealed yet by the team)
- Combat Badge for head shots and dealing more damage than other players
- Time Bonus for completing the map in under 2 days (I’ve never had this bonus not appear and have been matched with some incredibly slow players, so honestly, I have no idea how the “day” counter is supposed to work or how long a “day” is at this point in Beta)
- Time Bonus objective for finding an object and starting the base building process within a predetermined amount of time (such as 5 or 8 minutes)
- Don’t Overbuild Bonus for not building past a certain number of objects determined by the map (such as 30 or 60)
Getting a nice Loot Chest
Gathering Resources and Crafting Materials in Fortnite
To build base objects like floors and stairs in Fortnite, you need wood, brick, and metal resources, and where to find those three are fairly obvious. Trees, benches, and walls are good places to harvest wood; anything made of rock or stone gives up brick; and any large metal objects or piles of ore offer metal.
You’ll pretty much always have more of the three basic building materials than you need. What’s more scarce are materials for crafting traps, weapons, and ammo.
Before harvesting an object with your Pick Axe, check to see if it can be searched first — items that are obviously containers (chest, fridges, bookcases, sleeping bags, cabinets, ovens) are frequently searchable. Holding E to search provides random items and crafting materials. After searching, then go ahead and bash the object apart for building materials.
Objects harvested with the pick axe can also provide crafting material even without being searched. Some objects are more prone than others to have the rare items or crafting materials you need. For instance, take out televisions whenever you find them. Lawn gnomes are usually empty, but have a small chance to offer up crafting materials.
The Outlander class ability Keen Eyes reveals containers with valuable objects, but over time exploring maps, it becomes apparent which objects spawn more often and which are less frequent — harvest the latter first.
Harvesting Ore
Survivors And Surprises
While exploring in Fortnite, be on the lookout for radar dishes and other random objects on any given map that can give your team a boost. Typically, these require powering up with 3 pieces of BluGlo, and when properly powered, they give everyone on your team a damage boost.
Random Survivors are also found on every map, usually on top of vehicles or in small wood shanties. Aid these Survivors — either by fending off a small wave of zombies or just immediately talking to them — to get bonus rewards for the whole team. Don’t talk to Survivors when they are on the edge of a cliff, however. Your reward will fall off the map into the digital aether, never to be seen again!
Whenever a map quest has you searching for BluGlo, be prepared for a mini-game titled Whack-A-Troll that currently appears to launch at random with no rhyme or reason. When the game starts, switch to your Pick Axe and whack at the troll when it pops out of dimensional holes in the ground. If everyone on the team whacks the troll enough, random bonus prizes will appear.
Finally, always be on the lookout for treasure chests! They look just like the loot chests awarded after a quest and are often hiding in the nooks and crannies of house attics, the corners of the top floors of other buildings, and sometimes in basements of abandoned science facilities.
Mineshafts and hidden residential house basements are other frequent chest locations, and sometimes these are found by getting creative and making your own entrances. When you enter a house, point down and smash out the floor to see if there’s a hidden basement section.
Chests hook you up with free bullets and several random crafting components, so make sure to seek them out.
Finding an attic chest
Now you know all the basics for how to spend the searching and exploration phase of any Fortnite quest! We hope to see you online soon, and be sure to leave a comment with any other map secrets you’ve discovered so far!
