Gaming: Latest Shockwaves, We Miss You. Please Come Back To Fortnite

Epic said shockwaves made it too easy to escape fights—but removing them is a messy solution

Shockwave grenades, the king of movement items, Fortnite's evergreen purple propellants, have been removed from battle royale, and I've been grieving them for the past week. I feel stodgy and static without them.

The argument for vaulting them, as laid out by Epic's design director Ted Timmins, is that Fortnite had a "combat fleeing issue" that spoiled fights. "If we are being honest with ourselves," he said, "as much as we all love shockwaves, is it actually skilful to just throw one at your feet and immediately be able to escape an engagement?"

This echoes some but not all of the arguments made by streamer NickEh30 in December. He too said that shockwaves made escaping fights too easy—but added they also negate high-ground advantage, ruin early rotations, and outclass all other mobility items. Fans wondered whether NickEh30's prompted Epic's move, but Timmins denied that in his post.

I and most users on the game's subreddit disagree with the decision to vault shockwaves—I'll explain why in a minute—but I do sympathize with both Timmins and NichEh30. Shockwaves can be a crutch. I certainly lean on them to cover up mistakes: if I'm caught out of position without cover, outplayed at mid-range, or whittled down in a box fight I know that as long as I have shockwaves in my inventory, I can reset.

They create long cat-vs-mouse engagements that are decided by who has more grenades. If the mouse does, they escape, if the cat does, they can pounce. Aggression and outplaying your opponents often goes unrewarded because of them—and worse, rinsing your own shockwaves to chase an enemy across the map can get you killed by third parties.

This is fundamentally not the case. The team came to their own conclusions, and don’t make decisions unilaterally based on a single opinion. The start of Season 1 had a combat fleeing issue that can spoil engagements. The team felt this needed a meta change and I support… https://t.co/i40K7McOI2January 11, 2026

So, I get it. But I think a blanket removal is too blunt a solution, for lots of reasons.

It ignores how effective they are for pushing enemies. If you can land an assault-rifle burst from mid-range then shockwaves are the quickest way to close the gap and confirm the kill, reaching opponents before they can heal.

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Source: PC Gamer