How to play Fortnite Battle Royale in ‘first-person’

Update (March 6): One of the (many) leaks for Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 2 seems to confirm that first-person will be officially supported when the season arrives, according to several public figures Fortnite Twitter accounts.

Exactly how first-person will work in the game – such as a special mode like Zero Build, or as an option you can toggle at any time – is uncertain, but we’ll likely know more later this week.

Update (February 7): As expected, this method has been patched, so you can no longer use it to play first-person Fortnite Battle Royale. Original story follows.

You can start playing Fortnite battle royale in first person now, sort of. It’s a bit janky, and it’s not 100% in the first person: rather, some guns will change your perspective to first-person when you look inside. It looks like it a proper first-person mode may be on the way battle royalebut for now, you can try out this funky first-person camera option.

Due to the buggy nature of Fortnite battle royale‘s first-person camera, we don’t think this is an intended feature, so it can be removed. Camera angles when falling off the bus, sprinting, and other actions distort into weird perspectives, leading us to believe that this “feature” isn’t really ready to go. At the time of writing, we can confirm that the method below works to enable it.

This feature does not change the game to full first-person mode. It just causes some weapons to turn into first-person when you watch. Some weapons, such as the Red-Eye Assault Rifle, already do this in normal third-person mode. However, this adds more weapons to the list, such as the Machine SMG.

You need access to this Save the world, Fortnite’s PvE component. If you’ve ever purchased specific skin bundles, you may already have them Save the worldbut if not, you have to buy it.

Once you own it Save the worldto switch to the first person as follows:

1. Change your game mode from the main Fortnite screen to Save the world and load.
2. Open the settings.
3. In the “game” settings, toggle to enable the “first-person camera” under the “additional game options”.
4. To leave Save the world and select a again battle royale game mode from the menu.

As soon as you jump in you battle royale game, do you notice something about the animation when your character jumps off the bus. If they look a bit weird, like the image below, that means it’s working.

Image: Epic Games via Polygon

To disable the first-person camera, just go back inside Save the world and turn it off.