Epic recently implemented Fortnite cross-platform play, allowing players from various systems to face off against each other. However, this seems to have brought in an unintended consequence that has the community mad as Fortnite‘s new skill-based matchmaking automatically matches players up from different platforms. And these platforms don’t quite have the same controls to give everyone an even playing field.
Fortnite received the skill-based matchmaking feature as part of the 10.40 update. Epic implemented this feature to let players have matches against others close to their level. However, the feature apparently ignores the platform that a players is playing on.
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The result of this oversight is that players on console, and even mobile, are finding themselves matched with players on PC. With PC players seen as inherently having an advantage due to the accuracy of the mouse and keyboard control scheme, the issue has left more than a few players understandably miffed.
The issue actually started to blow up when a mobile player got into a lobby with streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. The issue then bled over to the competitive Fortnite subreddit where players got mad about the change, and the fact that Epic did not mention it in the patch notes.
“This isn’t a glitch or anything,” wrote redditor fuzzydoor. “Epic made solos cross-platform for all users since the addition of SBMM [skill-based matchmaking]. Not sure if it was on purpose or not, but it sucks for console and mobile users.”
In addition to this, players competing in the weekly “Mobile Monday” tournament have also voiced concern. Aside from the control issues, a redditor named Pyrtec also pointed out that PC players have an advantage due to having higher frame rates. With how the system works, these PC players can get into these supposedly mobile-only tournaments and will have that unfair advantage.
A number of players are already stating that skill-based matchmaking being cross-platform would ruin the game for them, and that they wished it wasn’t mandatory. “As a PS4 player, I have zero interest in playing cross platform,” stated redditor shaggy235 as part of a long post on the issue. He concluded the post saying that “It makes absolutely no sense to me why they would force console to try and compete.”
As of the moment, Epic Games has yet to issue a statement on the issue. It’s could be possible that this is simply a bug and that skill-based matchmaking being cross-platform all the time is unintentional. Here’s hoping for some clarification on the issue soon.
