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Not sure how to remotely detonate C4 in Fortnite's latest weapon update? We show you to blow up doors and walls to get to the vulnerable players inside!

How to Use C4 Remote Explosives in Fortnite

Not sure how to remotely detonate C4 in Fortnite's latest weapon update? We show you to blow up doors and walls to get to the vulnerable players inside!
This article is over 6 years old and may contain outdated information

While the big news on the block might be that Fortnite is getting a mobile iOS edition soon (with Android planned down the line), Battle Royale Season 3 is still going strong as the updates continue at breakneck speed.

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While you twiddle your thumbs wondering when Fortnite Mobile is coming out, there’s no reason not to jump back into some 100-player Battle Royale matches on PC or console — especially since new weapons have arrived!

The smoke bomb has now been replaced with remote explosive C4 units that can be thrown at a distance and then safely detonated while you hide out of sight. Building a wall or ceiling unit for protection is no longer a guarantee of safety when people have explosives ready and waiting to be blown!

The C4 icon in the Fortnite menu Where we’re going, there’s no need for doors!

How To Detonate C4 In Fortnite

Remote explosives are a rare drop found in chests like any other Battle Royale Season 3 weapon variety. When you switch to C4 in your inventory, there’s a two part detonation process, so plenty of players are throwing out a bunch of remote explosives and waiting for something to happen, but they don’t ever actually blow up.

Like with a standard gun, you just hit left click to fire off some C4 (sort of in an arc like a grenade). You have to then actually press the right click button on the mouse to detonate those explosives. If you switched to a different weapon after throwing the C4, right click won’t do anything to set off the explosion chain.

Note that they will also explode if they take any damage, so they can go off prematurely if people are firing wildly in the area, so take that into account when planting C4.

C4 attached to a board in Fortnite 
You really don’t want to find this underneath your base’s floor!

Throwing multiple explosives before pressing right click will result in each stick of C4 exploding in the order that it was thrown, with a slight delay in between blasts. 

This can completely change whether you get a kill or not as it gives other players time to change positions and get out of the blast radius. You have to time these properly or they are basically useless. Unless you have planned out the explosion change precisely and have immobile targets, it’s better to just use one at a time against other players.

Weirdly, the new Fortnite remote explosives don’t actually do that much damage to players (usually 70 damage), so they are more useful as a surprise attack or a means of taking out the base segment of a player-built ladder than actually for killing someone in a close up firefight. Maybe the damage will get tweaked in an update down the line?

They do a pretty solid job of destroying doors and walls though, so if you need to get inside a building quickly (and unexpectedly) instead of heading through the main entrance, these explosives give you an edge on people who think they are safe.

For a squad that focuses on building and defending a base instead of moving out in the open across the map, remote explosives will be a game changer. Camping and sniping until the expanding storm forces you to move may no longer be a viable strategy.

A player wearing a skeleton costume throws C4 at another player in Forninte Blowing up a player’s wood ceiling with C4
(thanks to Koala Tea Gaming for the screenshot)

That’s all you need to know on how to use remote explosives in Fortnite! Need help completing any other Fortnite Season 3 content? Check out our other latest Fortnite guides here:


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Ty Arthur
Ty splits his time between writing horror fiction and writing about video games. After 25 years of gaming, Ty can firmly say that gaming peaked with Planescape Torment, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a soft spot for games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout: New Vegas, Bioshock Infinite, and Horizon: Zero Dawn. He has previously written for GamerU and MetalUnderground. He also writes for PortalMonkey covering gaming laptops and peripherals.