Gaming

‘Fortnite’ Confiscates Swords

Players can now return to their regularly scheduled bloodbath on more even footing.

by Amanda Yeo  16 December 2018
Fortnite

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Fortnite giveth, and Fortnite taketh away.

Last week, Epic Games added a sword to its popular battle royale video game. Specifically, it added the Infinity Blade from Epic’s mobile game Infinity Blade. Only one blade would appear per round, leaving dreams of sword fights dashed. But it was reasonable considering how powerful the weapon was — too powerful, in fact.

Fortunately, Epic Games have heard the millions of voices crying out as they were cut into thin slices, and have done something about it. Yesterday, Fortnite announced that it was removing the Infinity Blade from the game, just a few days after it was released.

“We messed up and rolled out the Infinity Blade overpowered / without good counters, especially in the end game,” wrote Fortnite in a tweet. “The Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and we are re-evaluating our approach to Mythic items.”

This Mythic weapon dealt 75 damage to players, and allowed its wielder to leap large distances, destroying things in their path and dealing 25 knockback damage to nearby players when they land. The sword was also capable of destroying buildings in one blow.

The Infinity Blade further buffed up it’s wielder to a confronting degree. Their max health and shields were increased to 200 each and regenerated one point per second. They also received a burst of health upon killing someone, and their movement speed was increased to 130 percent.

Though players dropped the rest of their inventory sans building materials upon picking up the Infinity Blade, and dropped the weapon for other players upon dying, actually killing the bladed berserker proved exceedingly difficult.

Upon its release, Fortnite players immediately began complaining that the sword was overpowered, making the game aggravating for anyone who is not a sword-wielding god. No matter how carefully you played or how skilled you were, there was no hiding from the Infinity Blade, particularly near the end of a round when players were forced into close combat.

According to Eurogamer, it also caused havoc in the North American finals of Fortnite‘s $US1 million Winter Royale tournament, which took place the day the Infinity Blade was released.

Imagine qualifying for a $1,000,000 tournament and dying to this off the bat. from FortNiteBR

It was an interesting few days, but fortunately players can now return to their regularly scheduled bloodbath on more even footing.