A guide for advanced building in LEGO® Fortnite®

LEGO® Fortnite® worlds aren’t just a landscape to explore. They’re a canvas for creating some of the wildest creations you can imagine.

While there are blueprints to satisfy your in-game needs, LEGO Fortnite also offers a variety of tools that let you follow your heart and build almost whatever you want.

In this LEGO Fortnite building guide, we’ll give you tips and tricks about how to make the most of the creative backdrop that this open world gives you. The mechanics in this game are as deep and satisfying as using real-world LEGO bricks and elements. You’ll have a blast and see the hours fly by as you build.

The Creative Canvas within LEGO Fortnite

Before you get started building within LEGO Fortnite, you’ll have the chance to choose between a Survival, Sandbox, Cozy or Expert world. Survival worlds task you with staying alive amid hunger, freezing temperatures and brick-thirsty enemies. Sandbox worlds leave all of that aside for the pure joy of building.

The act of building is the same in both, except that you receive building recipes in the Sandbox mode from the start. In a Survival world, you have to earn them. That’s why some of our tips apply specifically to Survival worlds, where you’ll need to progress through upgrading your village, exploring the world and recruiting villagers to access all recipes, tools and mechanics within LEGO Fortnite’s building feature.

Once you’ve chosen your world type, LEGO Fortnite is like a huge piece of clay that you can shape into whatever your imagination desires. Looking to build a gigantic tower so you can gain a 360-degree view of your village and world? Done. Want to build a cage to lure wolves and other beasts into for mini coliseum battles? No problem!

Building with Blueprints

Building can be a challenge, especially in the early days of Survival mode when you don’t have access to all your recipes or a large amount of resources. You’ll still need to collect the necessary items like Wood and Granite to complete structures, but LEGO Fortnite blueprints will teach you how to understand the best locations, strategies and ways to place pieces.

It’s a good idea to finish a number of blueprints before getting into freeform building because they teach you how the mechanics work.

Advanced Building in LEGO Fortnite

Players have already spent their first handful of days within LEGO Fortnite building castles, elaborate mansions and wonderful wooden skyscrapers that glow in the light of their torches. Don’t feel like your creations need to match up with these builders. Almost everyone’s first handful of creations will be far from beautiful. But with enough practice, you’ll create something that you’ll love.

The basics of building within LEGO Fortnite are more advanced than they might seem. Laying an even foundation, snapping multiple walls and corner pieces together and fitting roof pieces on top takes work. This step-by-step guide will help you learn how to go from a shaky little shack into something far more elaborate.

Snap Building Mode

You’ll run into a few small obstacles while building – but what thing worth doing doesn’t come with a bit of a challenge? That’s why LEGO Fortnite has a Snap Building mode. This is an essential tool that will do half of the work for you while you’re building your masterful creations.

The Snap Building Mode does exactly what it sounds like it will do. It snaps pieces together, helping to even out foundations, line up walls and roofs, and make sure that everything is lined up correctly. You'll see a prompt that says “Shap Mode (Hold)” next to the button or key you need to hit, just like at the bottom of the screenshot in the next section. Use it often.

Starting From the Bottom

Every great building starts with a foundation. This will give whatever structure you’re building even ground to start off of. Wood and granite foundations can be found within the Building Parts section of the Building menu.

While it isn’t mandatory to start with a foundation, it will lead to the best results when trying to build a multi-level structure like a castle or lookout tower.

Starting foundations come in a variety of sizes and types, including 4x4, 4x16, 8x8 and 16x16. No matter what size and type you choose, they’re all two bricks deep. Your available choices are limited at first, but you’ll unlock and have access to more as you upgrade your village and explore different biomes in a Survival world.

Wall to Wall

Once you’ve laid your foundation, walls are the natural next step. Since foundations come in easy-to-digest layouts, it’s good to envision how your building will look before you start to lay it out in your village. There’s no way to move things once they are placed on the ground. You have to destroy them and then start building again in a different location.

Every building set comes with a designated corner piece, so don’t place walls right up to the corner edge of a foundation piece. Use the 2x2 corners to join walls at right angles. If you don’t lay these here, then you will have mismatches in your building and possible gaps in your walls. Do your best to snap these pieces into place as it can be difficult to fit them in just right. Remember to use Snap Building mode.

Building taller buildings can be as easy as layering walls on top of one another, although it makes building the roof slightly more difficult.

Raise the Roof

The roof is one of the most essential pieces for most LEGO Fortnite buildings. It protects you and your villagers from the rain and other elements, and it makes the entire building look far more aesthetically pleasing.

Laying roof pieces, including gables and roof tiles, is one of the trickiest parts of finalizing a structure. In most cases, you’ll want to place a gable first. You can find them in their own section of the Building Parts’ roof menu under the heading “Gables.”

Placing those first makes it easier to snap the roof tile pieces into place. This is straightforward if you’re building something that’s one wall-length in height. If you’d like to build something that’s taller, you’ll need to account for the extra space by using multiple gables.

Either way, once you’ve lined up your gable dimensions, you’ll be able to plop roof pieces into place.

Some of the most beautiful creations on display in LEGO Fortnite are buildings that come from some variation of this process. Some use pillars to raise the buildings into the air and give them a treehouse effect. Others use lookout pieces to add a special balcony twist to their creations.

Toys

Toys give you a chance to really flex your imagination. The most useful one is the Dynamic Foundation. It's – as you guessed it – dynamic. It has the ability to fuse with many of the other toys, including balloons, wheels and thrusters, and move around the map. You can create hot air balloons, cars, monorails and other moving contraptions that help you travel by land, air or sea.

One specific toy – the Boom Barrel – is your ticket to demolition. This toy creates a huge explosion once interacted with, either by hitting it or dropping it from a considerable height. Remember how it's difficult to move or destroy an already-established building? Boom Barrels can be used to take that building out, giving you a fresh space for something new.

Toys are a way to take your building to a new level. You can create floating buildings, trap doors and even moving bases. You can even use them to help you fight enemies like wolves and skeletons. Just make sure you are well-equipped before venturing out from your village.

Essential Update for Building Vehicles

We said you could build all sorts of things within LEGO Fortnite, and we weren’t kidding. Players have used Toy pieces, like thrusters and activation switches, to build cars, trains and other moving vehicles. One player has even built a monorail that takes him from one of his villages to another one on the opposite side of the map.

With the Mechanical Mayhem update 29.10, exciting new possibilities await! Kids can now discover three new vehicles: Speeder, Offroader, and Hauler.

Building these vehicles is like building any large structure in LEGO Fortnite. Collect resources, assemble the parts in stages, and see your vehicle come to life. But the excitement doesn’t end there! You also get access to the individual parts of each vehicle, giving you the freedom to design and build your own unique creations. Happy building!

Now that you’ve learned how to build beyond blueprints, whatever you do at this point is up to you. Just remember to let your creativity flow.