The Brave News

by Nick Hernandez

The end of Fortnite’s Season 4 was highly anticipated. The live “Rocket Launch” and the unveiling of the “Visitor” skin left countless players speculating as to what might happen in Season 5.

The giant rift in the sky that exponentially grew led to many theories and at the start of Season 5 players found out what all the hype was about.

Upon updating Fortnite, players were greeted at the Battle Royale game menu with an ominous desert gas station loading screen. When they joined in-game, the mini-map showed various new “Points of Interest” across the updated world. Such spots included Paradise Palms and Lazy Links, which were new to players and left many enthusiastic for what was to come.

Many weapons, items, and general nerfs and buffs were new to those entering into Season 5 and all were generally excited to see what was to come.

Although there was much hope for the future, Epic Games decided that before advancing any further, they would tweak some things currently that they felt were problematic in the game.

In general, many players were becoming bored to play after multiple months of the games success. In March, April and May of 2018, the Fortnite community and its number of players were at its highest peak.

Following the movie release of “Avengers: Infinity War,” Marvel partnered with Epic Games to bring the “Thanos Infinity Gauntlet” game mode to players. However, despite their surge of popularity, the game really began to “fall off” at the start of summer.

Fortnite was ultimately killed off by its own creators. Developers ruined popular gun strategies and made others far too strong. The community was discouraged when spamming became the new meta and many favorite landing spots got replaced.

Firstly, Epic Games took it upon themselves to end shotgun use completely, making each guns individual effectiveness almost nothing. They went as far as to stop players from using more than one shotgun at a time, ending the “Double-Pump” strategy, which angered many pros.

Epic then released 2 submachine guns that many immediately deemed overpowered. With SMG spam becoming a factor in everyday play, players began taking and using these weapons over shotguns, even using 2 at a time. The SMGs were excellent at destroying builds and eliminating players at close range.

It came as sad news however when a hot-fix was implemented and nerfs were placed on these guns to make them less useful, just as players began to adapt to the new meta. Ultimately, these guns became less used in the process due to their decreased damage at range and the inaccuracy of the guns overall.

Although there were many additions into the game, most players saw them as unethical and unneeded. There were too many updates at one time and gamers began to grow unhappy. The developers ruined game and weapon mechanics leading to the loss of interest of its player base, and putting Fortnite in its current unfavorable state.