Epic Games has made some major changes to Fortnite Battle Royale that could affect fans of crossplay in a big way.
Without much fanfare, the development team has confirmed that they have carved up how crossplay works in Fortnite Battle Royale.
And fans have discovered that the Nintendo Switch platforms have been paired up with that of the Android and iOS version of the game.
It effectively removes them from the larger console environment when playing random games, with PS4 and Xbox players seeing their own changes.
Matchmaking pools for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have been combined, and players now need to opt-in to Crossplay to access full features.
Players opting out are restricted to Creative Mode and Playgrounds, meaning Fortnite Battle Royale has a new multiplayer standard to abide by.
“Before, Switch players were combined with Xbox One and PS4 cross-play parties,” a message from Epic Games explains.
“We expect an on-average better per-game experience for both Mobile and Switch players.
“Motivating factor is unlocking optimisation potential allowing us to run more playlists during more hours of the day while supporting more data centre locations. Please provide us with feedback on your experience.”
The good news is that this week’s update does not affect players who want to group-up and invite each other to their own games.
These changes only affect random matchmaking and do not extend to friend group play.
The bad news is that the latest Fortnite update also added new problems to the game, which Epic Games have listed in a new post.
All game modes are reportedly suffering from stability Issues, which include client/server crashes and speed issues in Fortnite Creative.
A list of the problems can be found below, with Epic confirming that they have new fixes in the works.
- On mobile, tapping anywhere to fire requires two taps instead of one.
- The root cause has been identified and we’re working towards a fix.
- Players are noticing higher than normal ping in the debug UI. Our investigations have shown this to be a visual only issue but we are continuing to investigate reports. The root cause has been identified and we’re working towards a fix.
- Event Leaderboards are showing Rank as 0. This is a visual only issue that will be resolved in a future release.
- The root cause has been identified and we’re working towards a fix.
- The new style for the Whiteout Outfit is currently locked. This will be resolved in a future update.
- The root cause has been identified and we’re working towards a fix.
- Keybinds for The Baller are unbound by default. New keybinds can be set in the Options menu.
- Spectator count number is inaccurate, showing incorrect numbers.
- Some players are experiencing an issue where they join a match and can hear the match audio, including the Battle Bus but all they see is themselves still at the lobby. The root cause has been identified and we’re working towards a fix.