Tom B. August 15, 2019
YouTube star and Fortnite content creator Alastair “Ali-A” Aiken has begged Fortnite developers Epic Games to stop ruining the game.
The popular Youtuber with over 5.5 million subscribers made the comments on Twitter
“Dear @FortniteGame I love you but...You're successfully killing your own game and losing players because you're too stubborn to change the Mech's in a way that actually makes them fair. Listen to the community, please,” Ali-A said.
Epic Games did make some changes to the controversial mechs in the update on August 14 that took the game to version 10.10. These updates included a targeting laser to make it clearer to players where a BRUTE gunner is aiming, and also a self-destruct mechanic on any mechs left unattended for 30 seconds.
The most dramatic change was likely a decrease in spawn frequency for the mechs.
Many among the Fortnite community, including Ali-A, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, and Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf and have said this isn’t enough. Many hold the opinion that the inclusion of the BRUTE mechs have fundamentally changed the game. While Epic was willing to significantly change the spawn rates of the mechs, they seem unwilling to do what so many fans want them to do: remove the mechs from the game entirely.
According to business insider, Fortnite has over 250 million registered accounts exist as of March of this year. It is unclear as to whether that number has seen any dramatic drop off to suggest Ali-A is correct that people are leaving due to the introduction of the BRUTE.
Season X of the Fortnite Champion Series begins August 17 and will include the BRUTE mechs. In the announcement Epic stated, “The B.R.U.T.E. remains within the core game modes” and that they are “continuing to investigate a few more areas where we can improve combat interactions”. The tone of this statement suggests that removal of the mech is not something that Epic is considering at this time.