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Epic says Fortnite Summer Skirmish ”did not go as planned, but we definitely learned a lot!”

Epic says Fortnite Summer Skirmish ”did not go as planned, but we definitely learned a lot!”

Epic Games has apologised for server issues crippling the inaugural Fortnite Summer Skirmish tournament.

The duos tournament marked the first in the $8 million Summer Skirmish series intended to kick off official Fortnite esports. However, severe lag and server issues crippled play - unfortunate for a tournament with $250,000 on the line.

The Fortnite developer released a postmortem in the wake of last weekend’s event, which was pulled after only four of the ten planned matches.

“It represented the first time we’ve been able to bring together a high concentration of some of Fortnite’s most talented players and community creators all in one game” said Epic. We experienced many pain points from a server performance standpoint and feel we under delivered for the premiere of online competition in Fortnite. “

Epic claim that many particular elements of high-level play, combined with the high spectator count, placed a strain on server load. The developer is looking into solutions for future events, as well as potential changes to gameplay to prevent competitive end-game from turning into a mess of tunnels.

“There are a number of factors that caused the poor server conditions during this event. This includes the number of players still alive in the later circles, the number of players that stayed connected to spectate until the end, and the amount of dense building that occured late in the matches.“

“Week 1 also illustrated some of the difficult player vs. player engagement scenarios with so many talented builders under one roof. Complicated, snaking tunnels make it difficult to follow the action, but also amplify the lack of it (action). We’re thinking carefully about how to address late-game building for long-term health of competitive play.”

“Our top priority now is to understand and optimize server performance in these situations.”

With $100 million set aside for in-house competitive Fortnite, Epic needs to be sure that it can handle events like this in future - lest they find themselves caught out in the storm.


Staff Writer

Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.