It would be an understatement to say that Fortnite's most recent outing, Season 10, has been a letdown. From the #RemoveTheMech movement to the vaulting of the Combat Shotgun, the world's most popular game has had a difficult time catching a break. Its parent company, Epic Games, plans to change all of that next season, as it has announced some major changes to the Battle Royale mode.
The developers of Fortnite explained the impending alterations to the game's matchmaking: The skill level of players has changed so drastically over the past couple of years that they want to implement a way for those with similar skillsets to be placed in the same lobbies. So as a new user gets better at the game, so will the competition he or she faces in Battle Royale.
Matchmaking systems like this are nothing new. For years, some of the most popular 0nline multiplayers have used skillset as a determining factor in matching up players in a game. The reason it took so long for Fortnite to roll it out likely stems from the 100-player lobbies. Having that many people in one match makes it all that more difficult to analyze skill levels.
In addition to the matchmaking change, Fornite plans to integrate another massive alteration to Battle Royale in the form of Bots. For those unaware, Bots are characters within games that are controlled by the computer, making them like a non-player character, or NPC.
"In the next season, we are adding Bots to Fortnite," the developers explained. "They will behave similarly to normal players and will help provide a better path for players to grow in skill. Bots will work in conjunction with the new matchmaking system, and as your skill improves, you’ll face fewer Bots. Bots will not be present in Competitive playlists. This is another system that we will continue to update and iterate."
What makes this announcement so funny is that the term "Bot" has become lingo for a bad player within Battle Royale games. So, as usual, some of the Fortnite community has had fun with the proposed idea, taking to social media to voice their opinions. "Why are they adding bots to fortnite when timthetatman is already in the game?? I’m just making this tweet before anyone else can," said popular Twitch streamer TimTheTatman.
Fortnite is available across multiple gaming platforms, including Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, Nintendo Switch, macOS, iOS, and Android devices.