It seems like Epic Games made an oopsie, and fans were not happy about it. Epic Games had added a new weapon in the game and forgot to balance it. It turned out the weapon was insanely OP (that means overpowered for all the non-gamers out there), so they removed it from the game after much protest by fans. The weapon was the infamous Infinity Blade.
Players had raised pretty fair concerns. The Infinity Blade gave a massive advantage to anyone lucky enough to obtain the weapon. Epic had stepped out of its way to hype the weapon. The game studio managed to pique every Fortnite fan’s curiosity, but ultimately to no avail.
Epic had teased the weapon earlier in December. It labeled the Infinity Blade as “a weapon fit for a King.” It’s a bit peculiar to note that Epic decided not to release the weapon at the same as the winter update was made live.
The weapon was made available in the game on 11th December, while the winter update’s release date was December 6th. Instead of adding a new dynamic to the game, Epic managed to break the game by changing the playing field.
Coming soon… a weapon fit for a King 🗡👑 pic.twitter.com/n3kMDCS5IH
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) December 10, 2018
It made it difficult for players to counter the weapon effectively and made the game imbalanced. Epic had to shelve the idea just after three days of adding the weapon to the game. It was quick to admit its fault and rightly pulled the weapon from the game.
Epic pulled the “overpowered” weapon from the game. The game studio realized that the weapon did not have any “good counters,” and said it was “re-evaluating our approach to Mythic items.”
Even a developer with so much experience can make such blunders from time to time. Epic also held a Reddit forum discussion to discuss with fans how to improve the game “more context on item philosophy,” and “upcoming changes to the Blade.”
One of the ways of balancing the weapon that was brought up was to remove building and harvesting items when the Infinity Blade was equipped by players. This added another element of risk to the game, but sadly the idea never came to fruition.
Epic wanted more mythical items to the game, but this got off to a bumpy start due to the poor reception of Infinity Blade. Epic clarified its reason for adding mythical items in the game, in the discussion forum.
According to Epic, it wants to add “new and flavorful ways to interact with the map and generally shake up normal play across default modes.” This means it is trying its best to prevent the game from becoming boring and stale.
It doesn’t want to end up in the same boat as PUBG, which is left biting Fortnite’s dust. The Blade was broken from the beginning, but Epic still could have balanced it. So it will be sad to see the weapon go, but it was the right call in the end.
It remains to be seen however if Epic will totally ditch its idea of mythical weapons at all. I for one am still really excited what the game studio will pull out of its hat this time.
Fazeel Ashraf
Areen Zahra
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