Rebekah D. August 11, 2019
Fortnite is already a global phenomenon, but its reach continues to grow.
Epic Games announced the opening of a new server in the Middle East, offering a better experience to players in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and India. The news came in a statement on the official Fortnite website, along with a detailed post from the company explaining what it meant for players in the region.
Epic Games expects ping improvements of up to 50% in the southern half of the region.
The new server was installed in order to address issues with high latency in the region and is designed to improve the play experience in the Arabian Peninsula. Situated in Mumbai, India, the server location should increase the quality of games for a sizable chunk of Fortnite’s global player base.
The move comes alongside a shutdown of the established Southeast Asia server due to Epic’s belief that there was not a sufficient player population to support two separate servers in the region. According to the statement, this could have an adverse impact for some.
Many players in the Middle East have been experiencing high ping rates since the game’s launch in 2017. Epic has been seeking to address this for an extended period of time, but has encountered troubles due to the inconsistent interconnection between ISPs throughout the region. The company detailed how they addressed this issue by working with new partners and building a new network for the region.
This is undoubtedly welcome news for players in the area, who have long been calling for an improved experience. In January, the hashtag “#FortniteMiddleEastServers” was shared over 2.3 million times as players shared their experiences, with some experiencing lag as high as 1,000 milliseconds. Players in Europe attempting to play on American servers will typically experience between 100 and 200 ms.
News of the Middle Eastern server launch was leaked on Twitter two days before the announcement by Fortnite data miners. He successfully identified not just the region the servers would be for, but the city as well. His information also included information on 14 other new servers that will be deployed in the future, though these have not yet been confirmed.