Major changes are coming to 'Fortnite' and the most popular player in the world isn't happy about it
- "Fortnite" is the world's most popular game, with over 125 million players.
- Epic Games, makers of "Fortnite," are looking to evolve the gameplay. "We are exploring changes to weapon balance and resource economy, like e.g. resource caps," a post on Epic's blog said.
- Building without limits is core to the gameplay of "Fortnite," and limiting that could turn off a lot of players - including Ninja, the most popular player in the world, who's already voiced his displeasure.
Major changes are coming to "Fortnite," and this time it's not a meteor.
Instead, "Fortnite" maker Epic Games says it's exploring ways to evolve the gameplay of Battle Royale so the last few minutes of each match, "don't boil down to 'just build lol'." That's a direct quote, mind you.
As things are right now, players who reach the end of a given match in "Fortnite" are likely to encounter rockets, endless building, and shotguns. "The superiority of shotguns, rockets, and uncapped building are such a dominant play style in the final circle that most other strategies are being drowned out," the post from Epic Games says.
So, what changes are coming? And when? That's not clear.
"We are exploring changes to weapon balance and resource economy, like e.g. resource caps," the post says, under the "Recent & Upcoming Changes" section. Expect those changes "over the next few weeks."
Epic is proposing some major shifts to the core of "Fortnite" - with over 125 million people playing the game any little change impacts a ton of people. One very prominent member of that massive audience is Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who makes his living streaming "Fortnite" online.
And Blevins isn't happy with the potential for resource caps.
"You're just gonna have a potential situation where a bad player is just spraying [shooting] you, and you run out of materials, and then you die. That would make a good player rage," he said on a stream this week. "I took the time to farm 999 wood, by golly I wanna use it!"
Given the massive popularity of Battle Royale games in general - from "Fortnite" to "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and beyond - it makes sense that Epic wants to continue evolving its game. If "Fortnite" stays the same forever, it risks boring players and eventually losing them; if "Fortnite" changes too much, it risks alienating players and eventually losing them.
We'll see how it plays out in the coming weeks as Epic implements changes for "Fortnite."