Fortnite's New Kingsman Anti-Bullet Umbrella Criticized As Overpowered

Epic has added a new floor loot item to Fortnite, but some fans are criticizing it as overpowered. The new Kingsman Umbrella is exactly what it sounds like: a big umbrella that players can pick up and carry around. Coincidentally, this umbrella also functions nearly the same as the lightsaber that was introduced during the Star Wars tie-in, only it's more powerful in certain key ways.

The new Kingsman Umbrella in Fortnite offers players multiple benefits: they can deploy it to avoid taking fall damage by gently gliding to the surface; they can use it as a melee weapon to bludgeon an opponent to death, and they can open it up to deflect bullets. Fans have rightly described the umbrella as basically a lightsaber, only without the sophisticated deflection ability and with a glider-redeploy functionality.

Players report finding the umbrella amid floor loot in many locations, meaning you don't have to find a Legendary chest or Supply Drop to get ahold of one. As fun as it is for players who happen to find one, others are criticizing the weapon as overpowered, stating that it can perform too many actions that are difficult for opponents to overcome.

The Kingsman Umbrella arrived in patch version 12.30 this week along with a new item called the Crash Pad, which functions similarly to the Bounce Pad of olden days. The umbrella is by far the more useful of the two, particularly when it comes to taking on locations that are full of henchmen.

Epic no longer provides detailed patch notes for Fortnite updates, so it's unclear what else may have been added to the game this week. The umbrella joins the recently added Choppa, which is a helicopter vehicle that can carry a squad of up to five people in the air. The latest game season has also added things like Proximity Mines and returned some items like Remote Explosives.