Fortnite Crafting Guide - Recipes and How to

Fortnite’s latest season is really quite different. It is ‘primal’ themed, and that has come with a complete overhaul of the entire Fortnite weapons system. There are now a lot of new weapons in the mix, along with some reworks of classic weapons. What makes the Fortnite Season 6 weapons unique though is the crafting system at play. If you want decent weapons, or in some games usable, then you’re going to have to craft. You’re going to have to craft quite a bit. If you’re looking to optimize this new system then this Fortnite crafting guide covers the tactics and recipes you need to know.

Crafting is a bit of a weird mechanic to get thrown into the game this far into its life. It has made it slightly easier to upgrade weapons. Along with that, it has freshened up a now quite old meta for the top weapons. However, you have a lot more to do. As well as looting and gathering mats, you now need to spend quite a bit of your game getting yourself crafting materials. These aren’t going to drop from random players, you need to go out and get them yourself. On top of that, you need to secure the weapons that can be crafted into your ideal loadout. It is frustrating to finally amass the mechanical parts, but not have a weapon to use them with. This guide covers what you need to know:

Fortnite Crafting Guide – the Basics

If you’re completely fresh to the Season then you might need a bit of a refresher. The game hasn’t exactly forced players through a tutorial before starting this off. Loading up Season 6 boots you into a lengthy unskippable cutscene, but no explanation of the big new mechanics at play in the game. This is how all the crafting works:

Weapons are now divided into Makeshift, Primal, and Mechanical.
Makeshift weapons are the starting point. You can make primal or mechanical weapons by crafting them with either bones or mechanical parts.
Bows can be crafted into either primal or mechanical, with special functions added by some recipes.
Weapons take a few seconds to craft, and you’ll need to be in your menu to start it off going too. So, don’t try and craft unless you’re somewhere safe.
You get bones from killing animals, and mechanical parts from machinery.
The interface for crafting takes time to navigate. You need to learn the recipes, not scroll through menus mid-game.

Those are the basics. You’ll need to figure out how to efficiently harvest crafting mats though, as well as memorizing the weapons.

Fortnite Crafting Recipes

The Fortnite Crafting system is centrally used for weapons, and their upgraders. There are weapons like the Box which can be sidegraded into various versions. Then those like rifles and shotguns which go into primal or makeshift, as well as getting upgraded. These are the current recipes kicking around in the game:

Fortnite Bow Crafting

Primal Box – Makeshift Bow + 4 Animal Bones.
Mechanical Bow – Makeshift Bow + 4 Mechanical Parts.
Flame Bow – Primal Bow + Firefly Jar.
Flame Bow – Gas Can +Primal Bow.
Stink Bow – Primal Bow + Stink Sac.
Explosive Bow – Mechanical Bow + 6 Grenades.
Shockwave Bow – Shockwave Grenades and Mechanical Bow.

The bows get pretty fun with the Fortnite crafting system. The endresult can start fires, fire players off into the distance, or even gas them out.

Weapon Crafting

The crafting for general weapons is quite a bit simpler. All you need is the tier below of the same weapon, and the mechanical parts of bones. A makeshift rifle can be sidegraded/upgraded too. These are the basic recipes for these:

Primal Revolver – Makeshift Revolve + 4 Animal Bones.
Revolver – 4 Mechanical Part + Makeshift Revolver.
Primal Rifle – 4 Animal Bones + Makeshift Rifle.
Assault Rifle – 4 Mechanical Parts + Mechanical Rifle.
Primal Shotgun – Makeshift Shotgun + 4 Animal Bones.
Pump Shotgun – Makeshift Shotgun + 4 Mechanical Parts.
Primal SMG – 4 Animal Parts + Makeshift SMG.
Submachine Gun – 4 Mechanical Parts + Submachine Gun.
Hunter’s Cloak – 1 Meat and 2 Animal Bones.

To upgrade the weapons, you just need more of each crafting material that you already used. So if you want a decent loadout with the fortnite crafting system, you’ll need to do a fair amount of grinding!

Tactics for Crafting

Crafting is all well and good, but time matters in a Battle Royale. Throwing in a new mechanic and resource to collect adds to the early-game checklist, giving players a lot more they need to squeeze into the game to make it a success. So what can you do to try and get all the crafting materials you’re going to need? These are some tips for harvesting mats for Fortnite crafting:

Finding Animal Bones – Animals are really quite easy to find, so primal weapons aren’t too hard to come by. The center of the map is crawling with animals for you to kill. There are also good clusters in the space between the major POIs. Essentially, if you’re running short just head to the middle of the map.
You Have to Shoot Animals – Animals aren’t gonna die quick enough from your pickaxe, you’ve got to waste ammo and take shots giving your position away.
NPCs – A couple of NPCs sell crafting materials, if you have the gold.
Mechanical Parts – These come from cars, trucks, and other vehicles. This is where it gets a bit trickier.
Look for Non-Drivable Cars – Epic fixed non-drivable cars some time ago, they’re now back to being good sources of metal. You can destroy these with a pickaxe for metal and some decent crafting materials.
Drivable Cars Explode – Even though you need to destroy a car to get just a single mechanical part, each car is going to explode. So put some distance between you and the car. Also, try not to do this in the late-game as you’ll drag every close player in for an easy kill.
Don’t Harvest in the Mid or Late-Game – Unless you’re rotating, don’t bother harvesting in the late or middle part of a game. It just makes too much noise. You will attract a lot of players over to you by making so much noise. You’re also going to be distracted beating up cars or shooting animals. So, a bad situation.

Fortnite Crafting Do You Need to do it?

The Crafting system has some clear drawbacks and it makes the early game kind of frantic. However, you really do have to engage with it. You’re not going to find the weapons you need otherwise. If you’re struggling, then adjust your drop zone to go somewhere with cars to harvest early. Either that, or get used to the Primal weapons. It is much easier to harvest animal bones than mechanical parts. If you’re confident with the primal weapons, this can make things easier.

Our other guides to Fortnite can help you if you’re trying to improve on the fundamentals of your game in the new Season!

Fortnite Crafting Guide – Recipes and How to