There is so much you can do in Fortnite right now. From the highs of the Festival Stage to the twists and turns of Rocket Racing, Epic Games' multiplayer goliath is far more than just its humble Save The World beginnings. But I'm not concerned about that, I want to answer the burning question none of you are wondering: how long does it take to run across the map? Well, let's explore the art of running itself.
You may not think it, but running is a beautiful thing in Fortnite. Why? Because we've come a long way from the animations and quirks that graced the game back in 2017. Now, we're taking advantage of everything that Unreal Engine 5 has to offer. It's slicker and more natural, and you can combine it with other movement types, like the highly pleasing slide mechanic. I do miss wall bounces and parkour rolls, though. On paper, according to the experts on the Fortnite Fandom database, the base running speed in Fortnite is currently around 5.48 m/s. At a slow jog, we're covering ground at just 2 m/s.
At a full-on sprint, we're kicking things up a notch to 6.47 m/s. To put that into a wider context, Olympic running legend Usain Bolt reached up to roughly 12 m/s at the peak of his career. So, we're not that fast, but it's decent enough for what I need to do. Sliding speed is determined by my momentum and the surface I'm travelling down, so we won't worry too much about that metric. What we need to account for, though, are instances where jumps and short-distance swims are unavoidable. Depending on the water stream's direction, swimming speed in Fortnite reaches around 5.49 m/s, and swim jumps increase our overall speed to 8.75 m/s.
Normal jumping and falling is about 35-37m/s. So, we've got all the numbers, but before I even land on the current Fortnite map, there are other factors to consider. There's a chance I'll run into rival players, so it's probable I'll need to defend myself. Because Battle Labs and Playground mode aren't available anymore, I can't just hop into a match without any players present. Unless you're a creator, it just isn't possible. A handful of Fortnite Creative maps suggest you can explore a private lobby, but after testing different options, they're either outright wrong or based on older maps.
I'm also treating this realistically, in that I won't just jog across the land for the sake of it. Instinctively, as players, we run, jump, slide, mount, and do what we can to travel faster. Now we have all the base data, here's how it actually works in practice. My pilgrimage begins at Fore Fields, the finest golf course around that's riddled with bandages and bullets. The goal is to end up just past Bumpy Bay, the direct opposite of my location, which is 1836m from my starting point.
Now, I'll be the first to admit I'm no maths expert, but for the sake of this experiment, we'll try to look at it in a pretty simple way. We know the distance to the destination is 1,836 metres, and we also know roughly how fast a player moves in-game. To work out how long the trip should take, we can divide the distance by the speed. In this case, 1,836 ÷ 5.48, which comes out to roughly 335 seconds.
That number is in seconds, though, so converting it into minutes means dividing by 60, leaving us with about five minutes and 35 seconds. If we repeat the same calculation using the faster sprint speed of 6.47 metres per second, the journey drops to around four minutes and 45 seconds. It's not spot on by any means, but it gives us a solid ballpark figure for how long the trip should take.
Across my journey, I run into firefights. In my video of the full journey above, I'm using separate timers to track how long these skirmishes last, while keeping the original timer going in the background. In total, my battles take up 13 seconds of travel time. Considering I've got no shields and common-tier Fortnite weapons, I'm pretty happy with that outcome. The Chapter 7 map isn't quite as steeply inclined as other iterations, but I still have some hills to overcome along the way.
Eventually, I reach the end of the map, bringing my odyssey to a close on a small fishing boat. As I let the sun bathe over me and the waters of the island ripple through my ears, it's time to bring the timer to a stop. In the end, my total travel time comes to 5:39:02. Just under six minutes to get across the entire map. It's not too far off the quick maths prediction, either. Let's recall the highlights?
Firefights accounted for less than 4% of the entire journey, showing how little combat slowed the run. We know that even when we're sprinting at 6.47 m/s, your Fortnite character still moves at just over half the speed of Usain Bolt. And more importantly, you don't need to do this now; I've done it for you.
With the current season coming to a close soon, how will the map change up this time? I'm handing you the gauntlet to find out. Let us know how far you get over in the Pocket Tactics Discord server.