Fortnite has endless weapons, every season we get more and more. There are our standards of shotguns, ARs, and in Chapter 5 the guns even came to cars, but there’s a Fortnite melee weapons category too.
It’s thought of as more of a gun game but there’s actually a much bigger list of all Fortnite melee weapons than you’d expect. Especially in recent Fortnite seasons. At the moment, it seems like Epic adds at least one unique melee weapons with each seasonal change. They even dominate the meta sometimes. If you’re trying to finish off quests, it’s help to know what is a Melee weapon in Fortnite?
Source: Epic Games
The game features quite a few options for whacking people instead of shooting them. Often, they don’t really do as much damage as just whipping out your shotgun. Bad news if you’re trying to win Fortnite games with just your rusty pickaxes. Although, there are viable options, especially in Zero Build and more recent additions like the Kneecapper. These are the Fortnite melee weapons we have, how they work, and the secret one you can only track down in Creative.
All Current Weapons – What is a Fortnite Melee Weapon?
Before we get into the history of Fortnite, there are quite a few to know about in the current game. If you’re trying to finish off a quest with Melee weapons, the currently existing ones are what matters. These are the current Fortnite melee weapons:
- Lightsabers
Right now, we’re in a Star Wars collab season which means lightsabers! Although, they’re not as powerful as they’ve felt before. Most of the best Fortnite weapons can take a player out before the combo will. They do come with unique force powers too though.
Source: Epic
In the next few patches, we might see a bigger focus on Fortnite Melee weapons. We’ve recently had a whole LTM with Mortal Kombat melee items, and no guns in play. It seems we get at least one major Fortnite melee weapon every season.
Chapter 6 Melee Weapons
The melee weapons in Fortnite Chapter 6 have been taken up a notch. We’ve had a new item each season, with a unique mechanic and themed to fit the seasonal theme. Along with a batch of Fortnite collab items too.
Chapter 5 begun this trend. With items like the Chains of Hades, followed up with Fists, before the Marvel season had a lot of non-gun weapons. The Nitro Fists or Kinetic Blade style is what we currently get. A mix of Fortnite melee item and mobility tool. It’s proven to be one of the better mixes of styles for melee weapons.
Fortnite Melee Weapons in Chapter 5
In Chapter 5, we had more Fortnite melee weapons than normal. There’s your Pickaxe which you spawn in with. This does minimal damage if you land a hit. More suited to harvesting mats than actually racking up kills. This season we also have the chains of Hades, a fun item for pulling other players around. It’s a shame nobody takes fall damage from being pulled though, that could have made the Chains an S-Tier troll weapon.
Source: HYPEX
The season before, we had quite a few options for Fortnite melee weapons. We got the Ninja Turtle weapons (now in Creative too), four different items which were essentially in the same thing when you actually picked them up to play with. They had a short animation with a Melee combo. The much better use though was their secondary rotation tool. It burst you forward, like the old Kinetic Blade.
As usual we’ve had lightsabers in and out too. Then Nitro Fists, and even Marvel powers.
All Fortnite Melee Weapons
That’s how things look at the moment but we’ve had quite a few different melee weapons over the years. That includes some that have been game-breaking.
- Pickaxe – In hundreds of varieties thanks to the Item Shop.
- Infinity Blade – A ridiculously broken one-of-a-kind sword from C1. Gave you more health, healing, and near insta-killed.
Source: Epic Games
- Donatello’s Staff
- Leonardo’s Katanas
- Michelangelo’s Nunchaku
- Raphael’s Sai
- Chains of Hades
- ODM Gear – Mobility tool with a melee secondary
- Thorne’s Vampire Blade – Mythic Kinetic Blade
- Sideways Scythe
- Kingsman – Reskin of Chapter 2 Lightsaber
- Kinetic Blade – Much missed, a sword with great mobility uses
- Lightsabers – In more than different re-skinned options
- Thor’s Stormbreaker
- Predator Claw – Item exclusive to Predator boss back in C2
- Sword – Creative Tool
- Hammer – Creative Tool
- Nitro Fists
Source: Epic Games
- Grapple Blade
- Shuri’s Black Panther Claws
- Chainsaw
- Typhoon Blade
- Kneecapper
- Scorpion’s Kombat Kit
- Sub-Zero Kombat Kit
The Fortnite Sword That Ruined a $1 Tournament
Out of that big list, we can see there have been a lot more Fortnite melee weapons recently. One from Chapter 1 might explain why Epic avoided them for so long. The Infinity Blade.
This was an item which looked pretty much like a sword. You even had to pull it from the stone. One of a kind, the player holding it didn’t have any other weapons. It did deal over 100 damage per second though, doing 75 damage on each quick swing. Compared to your normal expectations for a sword, it granted a ton of other powers too.
Source: Epic Games
It gave players a super jump, and even healed them. The sword did 1 shield or health per second and a siphon 50 upon elimination. It made players able to chain kill after kill getting powered up along the way.
The player didn’t just get those bonuses though. You also had 200 HP and shield, 400 in total. Double everyone else in the lobby. A big movement speed buff. If all that wasn’t enough, the sword demolished builds at a crazy rate.
The Infinity Blade was added to the game with Patch 7.01. That was December 11th 2018, and it was vaulted just three days later, on December 14th. Why so quick? Epic held the Winter Royale in between, a huge tournament with a million-dollar prize.
One player absolutely demolished a lobby with the Infinity Blade, with insane kills and taking over the entire tournament.
Looking back, the builds are almost quaint by our standards for sweats in Chapter 6! It’s clear this item just didn’t work though, especially not in a tournament context. These days, you do still see melee weapons in Fortnite esports, but nor primarily as a rotation tool.