Epic Games added a ton of new content with the arrival of Fortnite’s Chapter 3, from a whole new map to new Battle Pass skins and brand new weapons. A relatively minor addition was a new type of tree from which players can harvest valuable materials for crafting. Perhaps not the most exciting of updates for most, but these humble trees hold a sneaky little secret of their own: you can use them to travel swiftly across bodies of water in the game.
This little exploit hinges on the fact that Chapter 3’s new enormous pine trees can be chopped down, creating an actual physical object with which players can interact. It turns out that these tree trunks don’t behave quite like other forms of timber in Fortnite. Should one of them land in a body of water, you can clamber on top and start hacking away at it to get at those delicious materials. As a delightful bonus, you’ll also soon find yourself surfing away at top speed across the water, providing an efficient and fun way of crossing lakes and rivers in no time. Reddit user HaYouGotRekTed showcased the phenomenon briefly in one of their own games:
It’s important to remember that this only applies to the new trees added in Chapter 3: they’re the ones that are bigger and slightly more pale than the game’s usual arboreal offerings. This fun little bug with the game’s momentum physics bears some resemblance to the kind of tricks that Zelda: Breath of the Wild speedrunners have been able to pull off with the Stasis rune.
