Fortnite Season 6 Map Changes: Wailing Woods, Floating Island, Secret Lab, Stone Heads

With the release of Season 6 come sthe anticipated (or dreaded, depending on your disposition) sweeping map changes. Season 6, just like seasons prior, alters the map and gameplay elements in interesting and unique ways. This article will walk players through most (hopefully all) map changes that have just been released with Season 6.

 

Fortnite Season 6 Map Changes

Wraith Zones

I really wasn’t sure what to call these, but I suppose Wraith Zones will do. They’re one of the more obvious changes to the map, introducing seven zones on the map that have a strange purple runic symbol in their centre which seems to cause the surrounding land to wither and become barren. Interestingly each patch of land has a different symbol associated with it. These were teased towards the end of Season 5 when they appeared around the map seemingly out of nowhere. What this all means is anybody’s guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a hidden puzzle or a set-up for an event and/or further challenges. Not overly difficult to find, pressing your map button will make their locations exceedingly obvious straight away.

What makes these locations on the map special from every other area on the map, though, are the special items that spawn in the vicinity of the rune. Think Season 4’s ‘Hop Rocks’ but way cooler, opening up the ability for some really unique and interesting plays.

 

Shadow Stones

Upon consuming one of these Shadow Stones your character will become incorporeal for 45 seconds. You jump higher, you don’t take fall damage, you move faster and you control like you’re on ice (you skid and slide around as you now have quite a bit of momentum behind your character). But that’s not all, using your fire button lurches you forward and allows you to pass through solid matter. That’s right, you can zoom straight through walls and better yet, you can still pick-up guns, ammo, items and interact with chests as you hover – not so silently – around. Finally, you can cancel the form at any time by holding your aim-down-sights button for about a second.

 

Wraith Form

Of course there is a drawback to all of this fun, you are both unable to shoot and still vulnerable to bullets. Therefore, you have no real way of actually killing anyone without cancelling the form and cancelling the form incurs a small animation lock where you can move, but not shoot, giving an aware enemy the first strike. That being said, the form is excellent for obtaining both the drop on someone and evading fire as you’re quite fast and jump very high, giving you the potential to throw off another player’s aim quite well. Just don’t ‘dewraithify’ right in front of their face if you think they can aim.

Floating Island

The massive floating island being held aloft by purple crystal and surrounded by a colossal waterspout is the other instantly noticeable change to the map. The house that rested every so comfortably out in the middle of Loot Lake has gone from one of the least trafficked and loot barren locations on the map to a veritable hotbed of aggression and loot.

The special part about this new location is the waterspout surrounding the island is essentially a rift that can be used at anytime and as many times a player feels like it. Jumping off the floating island will give you the option to deploy your glider propelling you a bit higher into the air. Jumping into the eye of the storm from the ground level will also fling you up into the air (engaging skydive mode) and you can deploy your glider to take you even higher, straight back up to the floating island even.

Floating Island Storm Area

Anyone who lands here (and survives) will enjoy unparalleled mobility to almost any point on the map but the desert region (being so far away). The floating island is also the highest point on the map, providing an incredible vantage point to survey your surrounding or snipe people from. Finally, the loot in this area has been substantially increased with both the island and storm area having quite a bit of loot, albeit exposed to more open air that you should feel comfortable with.’

Wailing Woods Secret Laboratory

The third largest change to the map is the revamp to Wailing Woods, namely the underground lab. The hedge maze that has survived a ‘pruning’ for numerous seasons now has finally received some love. The floor of the hedge maze is merely a wooden floor painted green, breaking it open reveals a secret lab/bunker.

 

Secret Lab Entrance

Jumping down here you’ll see a very elaborate bunker and lab set-up. Replete with ‘sophisticated looking’ computers, machinery, living quarters, offices and storage areas. It really attempts to capture that ‘shady underground government laboratory’ feel.

 

Secret Lab

Further exploration of the lab will reveal what they’re researching.

 

The Lab’s Research

That’s right, this secret lab below Wailing Woods is working on generating artificial Rifts for travel. This is also the most convenient way of escaping Wailing Woods once you’re finished there, as it teleports you outside regardless of it being underground.

This change to Wailing Woods will definitely be overlooked initially as its more flashy and noticeable brethren steal the spotlight. However, this is one of the cooler changes to the map, being so well concealed.

Castle On The Hill

While not as flashy as the above three changes to the map, the hilltop that overlooked Haunted Hills has received quite a large upgrade. A gothic looking castle has been built there that specifically overlooks the graveyard (Castlevania feels perhaps?). It contains a decent amount of loot and looks pretty damn cool, but otherwise it has no special features like the first two additions to the map.

Other Changes

The above three constitute the major changes to the map’s design and locations, but not all of them. Wailing Woods has received a substantial upgrade, with numerous houses being built in the woods.

 

Wailing Woods Houses

This makes landing here infinitely more hospitable, as there is much more loot and cover. The houses themselves are of unique design, having large basement areas. This means rushing the secret lab isn’t mandatory for surviving Wailing Woods, though it does make escaping it much easier due to the Rift.

Another change is the Stone Heads from Season 5 have been removed as well.

 

Removal Of Stone Heads

With their removal also appears to be the Rift spawns as well, reducing the total number of Rift on the map by quite a large amount (they now congregate mostly in the desert zone). The intention here is to probably promote using the wraith form to travel around instead of Rfits now. It has also removed the chests present in these locations as well. However, the Wraith Zones spawn them in a similar fashion to the Stone Heads, once again diverting traffic to the newer zones for both loot and travel.

That’s about all the changes to the map that we’ve spotted so far. It is however, quite likely there are many, many more minor alterations to the map that have been overlooked in favour of the more ‘flashy’ changes to the map.

For those interested in an overview of the first week’s challenges, you can find our weekly overview and guide here. We have also have an article on the streetlight dancing challenge, documenting all the locations we could personally find. Happy exploring.