What is Siphon in Fortnite? Medallion augment explained

Fortnite continues to be one of the most popular games on the market, but there are still some confusing aspects—including Siphon.

In Fortnite, Siphon is a term that appears and disappears through seasons. In Chapter Five, season four, Siphon has returned as an Augment on the Medallion earned for defeating Doombot. Despite the term having appeared previously, it still causes confusion.

We’re here to clear things up, though, by giving an exact definition of Siphon in Fortnite and what it means for this season.

What is Siphon in Fortnite and what does it do?

Siphon in Fortnite is a mechanic that lets you instantly heal health or shield upon eliminating an opponent. Naturally, this mechanic can be important when pushing for victories in Battle Royale modes.

Defeating the Doombot and picking up the Medallion provides the Siphon Augment, automatically regenerating your health and shields when you get an elimination. If you can use this correctly, it can be a huge asset and push you to a W.

Why is it called Siphon?

This mechanic is called “Siphon” after the Siphon Limited Time Mode that Epic Games introduced to Fortnite on Dec. 20 last year, as part of the special modes rotation during 14 Days of Fortnite. In Siphon, though, killing opponents was the only way of gaining shield or recovering health, which isn’t true to the latest versions of the Siphon mechanic.

As part of the v22.30 update, Epic Games added five new Reality Augments. Two of these allow the player to get Siphon based on whether they have a shotgun or weapons with lower rarity. As long as you use the right weapons to get damage and kills, then you should notice the Siphon restoring shields or health to your character.

For a short period, all Fortnite players were forced to play under Siphon mechanics. Epic added them in the v7.40 update in season seven to all default playlists, which made it the standard playstyle of all Battle Royale game modes for a while. The company then removed this mechanic in the v8.20 update the next season due to it leading to an unhealthy level of aggressive play—but left it untouched in competitive modes. Players commonly associate an increased harvesting rate to Siphon mechanics because of that period, but there wasn’t such an increase in the original Siphon game mode.

It seems that Epic is toying more with the idea of including more Siphon mechanics in the game as part of the Augment system. These are likely to provide some players the upper hand as long as they can eliminate the enemy and meet the requirements.

Now that you understand what siphon is in Fortnite, get ready to jump into competitive matches and get that health per elimination against your opponents.