Other than new content, significant gameplay changes were also made, and new vehicles like Trail Thrasher Dirt Bikes are now available to equip during the match. Now, if we talk about some significant improvements in addition to the gameplay and cosmetics part, then the highlight of the new update would be the utilization of the latest tech, Lumen and Nanite powered by Unreal Engine 5.1. This is a notable improvement from the game’s previous architecture, based on Unreal Engine 5. You can have a look at the improved visuals in the screenshots attached below.
Epic Games also explained thoroughly how this latest technology will improve the experience and immersion for a player:
Nanite
Nanite provides highly-detailed architectural geometry. Specifically, buildings are rendered from millions of polygons in real time, and each brick, stone, wood plank, and wall trim is modeled. Natural landscapes are highly-detailed too. Individual trees have around 300,000 polygons, and each stone, flower, and blade of grass is modeled.
Lumen
Lumen reflections provide high-quality ray traced reflections on glossy materials and water. Also, Lumen provides real-time global illumination at 60 FPS. You’ll see beautiful interior spaces with bounce lighting, plus characters reacting to the lighting of their surroundings. (For example, red rugs may bounce red light onto your outfit.) Also, Outfits that have emissives (a.k.a. glowing) qualities will scatter light on nearby objects and surfaces.
Virtual Shadow Maps
Virtual Shadow Maps allow for highly detailed shadowing. Each brick, leaf, and modeled detail will cast a shadow, and character self-shadowing is extremely accurate. This means that things like hats and other small details on characters will also cast shadows.
Temporal Super Resolution (TSR)
Temporal Super Resolution is an upgrade over Temporal Anti-Aliasing in Fortnite, and allows for high-quality visuals at a high framerate. Fortnite with Chapter 4 Season 1 update is now available for free to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Android, IOS, Mac OS, Cloud Gaming ( Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now) and PC via Epic Games Launcher. So, what are your thoughts about this new Fortnite update? Are you looking forward to exploring the new island and testing out new graphic modes? Let us know in the comment section below.