Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle: Release date, stats, and more

Despite backlash on social media towards Epic Games making players choose between the Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle and Combat SMG, it would seem that as of now the AR is the clear winner with more than 80% being funded.

Sadly, the Combat SMG picked the short end of the stick and will remain vaulted for the foreseeable future. Perhaps loopers will be able to have the weapon in the loot pool next season.

Although players will not get to try out the brand new SMG this season, they will soon be getting a hand-held gatling gun in the guise of an AR, able to beam opponents at mid range.

---

The Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle is an oddball of a weapon

When the term Combat Assault Rifle comes to mind, most imagine a close to mid range weapon capable of dealing massive amounts of damage with high precision and accuracy.

While the latter may be true for the new Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle, the former is a bit sketchy. It would seem that this new weapon, once thought to be powerful, is somewhat subjective in nature.

---

Statistics

For starters, the gun deals very low damage. How low? About 11 damage less than its counterpart, the Assault Rifle. However, what it lacks in damage, it more than enough makes up for in rate of fire.

Statistics	Assault Rifle (Legendary)	Combat Assault Rifle (Legendary)
DPS	198	225
Damage	36	25
Fire-Rate	5.5	9
Magazine Size	30	35
Reload Time	2.07s	2.8

The Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle has an astonishing 9.0 fire rate, which is very high. To put it into perspective, a Legendary tier Minigun has a rate of fire of 12. So although the damage output is low, the weapon can essentially be used to beam opponents into submission,

To feed the ever-hungry bullet-eating Assault Rifle, developers have even slapped a 35 round magazine on the weapon, which is quite high for an AR. Players should be able to spray away without having to reload quickly.

Based on information from HYPEX, the Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle features a tight bullet spread, which comes at the cost of high recoil. Compared to a normal AR in-game, this weapon will require a good understanding of recoil patterns in order to master.

---

Release date

Well, much like round one of the War Effort donation drive, there is no fixed date on which players can expect to see the Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle go live in-game.

As of the moment, the weapon has been funded to a little over 80%. If donations are held at the current rate, the item could be in-game within two days at the most. Furthermore, given that the weekend is fast approaching, many more players will be grinding for gold bars and donating around the clock.

If all goes well, the Fortnite Combat Assault Rifle should be unvaulted by Sunday, October 17. However, much like the Shockwave Grenades, players may have to wait a bit before Epic adds them in-game for use.