‘Fortnite’ to Add Bots and Matchmaking Based on Skill

In a blog post written and published by Epic Games on Monday, the makers of Fortnite stated that they’d soon be making some potentially substantial changes to their Battle Royale core modes.

The first change concerns a tweak to matchmaking that will occur in the upcoming 10.40 patch update. As Epic puts it, an “improved matchmaking logic” will pair closely skilled players for the sake of creating “fairer matches.” The post doesn’t offer too much in the way of specifics, but they did write that as you get better your competition will get stiffer (and, presumably vice-versa).

As it currently stands Battle Royale players get matched regardless of their skill, which can lead to some seriously uneven (and often un-fun) beatdowns.

As for the second change, Epic has announced that they’ll be adding bots to their non-competitive modes. That change will occur in Season 11, which looks slated to start in the first or second week of October.

“[Bots] will behave similarly to normal players and will help provide a better path for players to grow in skill,” The Fortnite Team writes. “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.”

They add that the new system is something that will be continuously tweaked and updated.

As noted by Kotaku, early reaction to the changes on the game’s competitive Reddit seems to be largely positive as players optimistically hope that the new matchmaking system will lead to the game handing out fewer items that allow casual players to unfairly have a chance against their more experienced counterparts.

As for the immediate Twitter reaction to these announcements, well there was a theme that should be pretty easy to spot.

For the semi-tech illiterate/gamer with a 9-to-5, note that being called a “bot” has become a disparaging term for bad players in the Fortnite community and beyond. Hopefully that makes more sense now.