Fortnite leak teases return of Launch Pad, but will it be the same?

By Brittany Roston/

For reasons we've never been told, Epic removed the Launch Pad item from Fortnite with the arrival of season four — and as you'd expect, fans were both surprised and very unhappy. The Launch Pad has been in the game since the beginning, making it possible for players to escape the Storm or tricky situations at the last minute. Now, it seems, Epic is planning to bring the item back.

The Launch Pad, of course, is the trampoline-like item that players can deploy and jump on to launch themselves into the air. Though it's not powerful enough to take you all the way across the island, it does transport players quite a distance, saving them the time that would otherwise be spent mindlessly running.

Multiple reasons for the removal have been assumed by players, including that perhaps Epic felt the zip lines were enough for players to get around or maybe it thought the cars were a suitable substitution (though they're not given the amount of noise they make). Some have also suggested that the change may have been due to the addition of superpowers, but it's unclear why they would matter.

Regardless of the reason, a new leak from a Fortnite data-miner suggests the Launch Pad may return soon — likely with the Season 5 arrival, but there's no way to tell at this point. The item has reappeared in the game assets files with one of the recent updates.

The big question remains, however: will the Launch Pad be the same one players have come to know and love, or will Epic tweak it in some way? We'll only know for sure when (if) the Launch Pad arrives in the game, but it seems likely that it'll remain unchanged.

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