Sand Tunneling

Sand Tunneling is a game mechanic in Fortnite: Battle Royale. It was introduced in Chapter 2: Season 5 and allows players to move faster, and undetected through sandy surfaces.

Functionality
Sand Tunneling is activated by the player standing still for around three seconds on top of an unobstructed sandy area. The sand that allows sand tunneling is only found around the Zero Point, and encompasses locations such as Salty Towers, Colossal Coliseum and Butter Barn. Once the player is still, they will begin to slowly sink into the ground. This sinking is interrupted by movement, consuming an item, shooting or reloading.

The player then sinks into the ground and is now sand tunneling. The player also takes the form of a semi-sphere shaped mound on the ground, which when moved created a large sand cloud, alerting others to the location of the mound. When in this state, the player moves faster, but must move for a certain period of time in order to get enough momentum to reach maximum speed. Sand Tunneling is cancelled by moving away from a sandy area, moving into water, moving onto an elevated prop or by pressing the primary fire button. The player is able to change the selected item in their inventory in this state, but still has to complete a short 'jumping out' animation in order to attack again.

Opponents are able to hurt a player sand tunneling by shooting anywhere on the mound. This will deal standard amounts of damage, and cannot critical hit.

Strategy Guide

 * Sand Tunneling is very effective at hiding from opponents, as tunneling in a dimly lit area, or one filled with props can result in a cleverly disguised sand mound.
 * Sand Tunneling is the fastest way to move around the desert area, as doing so is much faster than running or even driving.
 * Be aware that Sand Tunneling makes a very obvious trail of dust if the player moves. This can aid opponents in spotting you.
 * Sand Tunneling makes your hitbox shorter, but much wider, meaning that players attacking from above will have a much easier time hitting you.
 * If someone is chasing you, build a 1x1 box, but keep 1 wall open (or edited) so you can escape when you are sunken into the sand.

Chapter 2: Season 5

 * Update v15.00: Added Sand Tunneling.

Chapter 2: Season 6

 * Update v16.00: Removed Sand Tunneling alongside the large sand biome present in the center of the map.

Trivia

 * Sand Tunneling is now infamous for being disabled for a long period of time, like Shadow Stones were.
 * Sand Tunneling was first disabled for an issue that caused a player's viewpoint to be de-synced with their actual location, meaning that throwing items or shooting came from an area different to the location of the character model. This was patched within a week.
 * Sand Tunneling was then disabled at the start of Operation: Snowdown. Due to this, a weekly challenge that applied during the time, was auto-completed as it involved the mechanic.
 * Sand Tunneling was finally re-enabled on the 20th of January with Update v15.21. It had been disabled for 33 days prior to its reintroduction.
 * A bug with Sand Tunneling shows that attacking a Tunneling player deals HP damage instead of Shield, as the numbers will always appear white. This is not the case however, as it attacking a mound deals regular Shield damage.
 * Some locations, such as the back of one of the houses in Salty Towers enables the player to tunnel under the water in the house, without popping back up.
 * As shown in replays, Sand Tunneling just forces the playermodel of the character around 2-3 meters below the surface, and moving shows them running normally, rather than replacing or removing the player's model.