The Sideways Weapons Are Only Available for a Week in 'Fortnite'

Epic Games has been pulling out all of the stops for Chapter 3, Season 2 of Fortnite. Between temporarily removing building, bringing armored battle buses, and unvaulting a lot of weapons that haven't been seen for seasons, Epic has made sure there's no shortage of interesting factors added to gameplay as players face off against the IO soldiers.

For one week only, players can use sideways weapons in their battles as a callback to Chapter 2, Season 8 of the game. But where do you find these weapons?

Sideways weapons were originally introduced to Fortnite during the cube invasion of Chapter 2, Season 8. These weapons could only be found and used in Sideways Zones when they made their debut, though they've been added into regular gameplay for this season of Fortnite.

The biggest difference in these weapons compared to the other traditional weapons you'll find in the game is that instead of their needing to be reloaded, you can shoot until the gun overheats.

There isn't a magazine on either the Sideways Rifle or the Sideways Minigun; instead they pull the ammo directly from your inventory, meaning you won't need to pause to reload.

With the Sideways Rifle, you can fire about 10 shots in a row before it overheats, while the minigun will let you fire up to 54 consecutive bullets before it needs to cool down.

Originally, Sideways weapons were only found in Sideways Chests, but since the Sideways Zone no longer exists, you'll find these weapons in regular Chests and floor loot.

Unfortunately, because these weapons are rare and a bit more powerful than your traditional weapons, they'll spawn at a much lower rate than the other weapons. This means that for the week they're available, they'll likely be hard to find – both because of their rarity and how in-demand they'll be.

That being said, if you manage to get your hands on one, then you'll find that they're incredibly handy weapons to have. They can be made even more powerful by upgrading them — just head to any of the Upgrade Benches that are scattered around the island and spend some of your Gold Bars to add additional attributes to them.

Unfortunately, the Sideways Scythe did not make a reappearance in the game during this special event, but both of these weapons are still incredibly useful to have in your matches.

These weapons are, unfortunately, only available until May 24, 2022, which means you'll have to hunt one down sooner rather than later if you want to spend any amount of time using it to its full potential. During this week there are also a series of challenges dubbed the Sideways Showdown, offering more XP for completing the quests.

While you won't get to keep the weapons after they are re-vaulted later this month, you should still take advantage of them while you can to rake in the XP.