What Exactly Does Siphon Mean in 'Fortnite'? What to Know and How to Use It

Besides being one of the forerunners of the games market, Fortnite has a great variety of systems and features that newcomers and veterans must know to up their gameplay. Learning how to ride boars or wolves and create bot lobbies to test yourself goes a long way.

There's also the "siphon" feature, an in-game mechanic that Epic Games recently brought back to the game with Chapter 4. The term has been making the rounds around the Fortnite community, but what exactly does it mean?

Siphon is a mechanic that lets players instantly recover health or shield after eliminating an opponent in Fornite. It was first introduced to the game in 2018 as part of a limited-time game mode where players had no health or shield consumables available.

Eliminating opponents allowed players to siphon 50 health or shield back upon killing an enemy player. Moreover, if your health pool was full, the mechanic would roll over into your shield resource for extra coverage.

With its recent return in Chapter 4, the resource-stealing mechanic looks pretty different nowadays. The latest v23.20 update added five new reality augments - two of them called "shotgun striker" and "rarity check" - that players can acquire in the battle royale game to use siphon in matches.

The former grants players siphon for firing at an opponent with a shotgun, while the latter recovers your health or shield pool for making eliminations with common and uncommon weapons.

Augments debuted alongside Chapter 4 as randomized modifiers that reward players surviving long enough in a match with additional buffs to use until the end. Four augments can be stacked in Fornite, giving a decent range of customization from player to player, even though it's random.

If you haven't seen the new siphon augments drop in-game, it's likely you haven't unlocked them yet. Playing more Fortnite matches increases your chances of unlocking additional augments.

Other ways to better your odds include re-rolling for a different augment with your free re-roll every game match or playing with friends in a squad to swap augments between each other. Aside from the battle royale, the siphon mechanic is also available in Fornite Creative.

To enable siphon, you must open up your "my island" screen and navigate towards the "Settings" tab once inside Fortnite Creative. Very close to the bottom of the page sits the "health granted on elimination" option, which you can tweak from zero to 200.

Setting it at the halfway point will recover exactly 100 health or shield but 200 tops you off entirely. You can also adjust how much metal, stone, wood, gold, and other in-game resources you can recover upon elimination next to the health option.