'Fortnite': Where to Find Mushrooms and Why Everyone's Gonna Devour Them

Suddenly, the island in Fortnite: Battle Royale is plagued by an incredibly useful fungus, and it’s one that could change the go-to strategy for many players.

On Wednesday morning, developer Epic Games rolled out the version 4.3 update for Fortnite: Battle Royale, and in addition to putting ridable Shopping Carts into the game, the update also scattered Mushrooms about the map. Functionally, Mushrooms are almost identical to Apples except rather than boosting Health at 5 points per consumption, they instead offer 5 points of Shield. This makes Mushrooms arguably even more valuable than Apples, but it probably also means they’ll be harder to find.

Here’s the official word from the new patch notes:

Added new foraged item: Mushrooms

Mushrooms will grant 5 shield (up to 100).

Can be found around shady wooded or swampy areas.

Fortnite rarely goes for realism, but when it comes to both Apples and Mushrooms, you can expect to find each in the same places you would in real life. If you’re hunting for Mushrooms, you’ll have to look in “shady wooded or swampy areas,” which obviously means Wailing Woods and Moisty Mire will be the places where you’re most likely to find them.

So far, our research suggests that Mushrooms are much harder to find than Apples. This makes a lot of sense because if you could easily land somewhere on the map and gobble up a bunch of ‘shrooms, then you could very easily get your Shields maxed out early in a match. Normally, doing that is challenging because you typically need to consume a larger Shield Potion after you’ve already gotten your Shields to 50.

At the very least, it’s probable that plenty of players might select different starting locations in the hopes of finding a few Small Shield potions to get them to 50 and then eating a few Mushrooms to inch them a bit higher. After all, if you have more Shields than your opponents, even a small amount, then you have an advantage.

So it’s time to start rethinking your go-to routes the next time you settle in to play Fortnite: Battle Royale.