After years of rumors, Fortnite‘s long-awaited first-person mode will finally debut in a few days with the launch of Fortnite Ballistic on December 11. Fortnite Ballistic is not a battle royale mode, but rather a 5v5 Counter-Strike-esque round-based shooter in which one team will attempt to set off a Rift Point Device bomb, while the other team will try to disarm it.
In Fortnite Ballistic, there aren’t any respawns–the round ends when an entire team is eliminated, or the Rift Point Device is disarmed or exploded. You’ll start each round with a pistol and some credits–you’ll use the credits to buy guns between rounds, when each player also chooses a gadget, like bubble shields and proximity mines.
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If you survive a round, you can keep your stuff, and if you die you have to buy new items. Be warned that if you win a round by detonating the Rift Point Device, you might still die in the explosion, which is going to be an interesting wrinkle for teams who have to defend the armed bomb from a team that wants to disarm it. The first team to win seven rounds takes the whole match.
In its announcement for the mode, Epic describes Ballistic as being “early access,” rather than a fully featured new mode. That tracks with the fact that Ballistic will have just a single map at launch, the city-based Skyline 10.
Fortnite Ballistic will arrive with both ranked and unranked varieties. In ranked, the game will not backfill your team with new players if your allies leave–but if your game crashes or disconnects, you’ll actually have a three-minute grace period to get back in, something Fortnite has never allowed in an official mode before. And, yes, there are leaver penalties in ranked Ballistic, including a short matchmaking ban.
Despite being a first-person mode, Fortnite Ballistic will support most of Fortnite’s cosmetics, including skins and emotes.