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Storm Surge is one of the most complex mechanics in Fortnite. While it’s been in the game for a couple of years, many players still don’t know what it means. However, this comes as no surprise considering that the mechanic is only enabled in competitive modes.
Many gaming fans recently watched the FNCS Global Championship 2023. Fortnite players Mero and Cooper won $1 million and the glorious Swarovski FNCS Trophy. However, this was also the first time that a lot of players noticed the Storm Surge, a key element of competitive gaming.
Here’s everything you know about it.
How does Storm Surge work in Fortnite?
Storm Surge is a Fortnite competitive feature that encourages players to get into combat. Considering that competitive gaming is all about survival, many players avoid combat unless it’s completely necessary. However, Storm Surge punishes players who are passive and takes away their health.
If there are too many players alive in a zone, the ones who’ve dealt the least damage in a match will be affected by the Storm Surge. Players affected by the surge will lose their health periodically until they deal enough damage to their opponents. The threshold will be shown on the screen.
For example, Storm Surge will activate if there are more than 90 players alive after the first circle. Once this happens, players who’ve dealt the least damage by that point will start to lose health unless they damage their enemies. If the threshold is 100 damage, they will have to deal this amount of damage to stop losing health.
In this scenario, Storm Surge will stop after 90 or fewer players are alive. However, it may also activate later in the game.
Interestingly, this mechanic was added to Fortnite with the v6.31 update in Chapter 1 – Season 6. Despite being out for nearly five years, many players are still not familiar with Storm Surge and how exactly it works. Fortunately, casual players don’t have to worry about the surge as it’s not enabled in regular game modes.
