Fortnite’s userbase is not happy with the way Epic Games has been handling the game. Some are even going as far as comparing the current situation to that of Paragon; one of Epic Games failures. What does that mean exactly? Read below to find out.

Fortnite Loyalists

Epic Games has created one of the most successful multiplayer games in history, and it’s still at the top of the leaderboards in terms of user base and popularity. However, there are some red flags that might question Fortnite’s position. To be realistic, every video games has a shelf life. Some games can last a good year before players move on, while other titles stay around for years (ex: esport titles). Additionally, gaming companies change certain things in order to keep the community engaged. Let us take a look at Counter-Strike, one of the well-known games out there which has been around for a long time. But the Counter-Strike as we know today comes from a long road of CS 1.5 – 1.6, Counter-Strike Source and now Global Offensive. Valve Corporation kept the foundation of it’s CS games, however, updating it to keep its user base engaged and appeal to new players. Fornite is very similar in the sense that Epic Games has “seasons”. The game changes with every season, and there is always a story that the season is based on. New items, skins, and vehicles are added to change the dynamics of the game. Sometimes it’s a hit, and other times it’s a miss as we’ve seen with the BRUTE mech.

Despite the success Fortnite has had, it is not close to having same title as games like CS:GO or League of Legends for example. Epic Games will need to continue to appeal to its large user base if it hopes to keep Fortnite around longer. Adding esports tournaments is definitely one way to keep Fortnite alive. Another step that Epic Games has taken was to update the game continuously, which has hurt them recently (ex: BRUTE).

Fortnite Competitive Affected

Professional players, popular streamers, and the Fortnite community have started to voice their concern over the changes that are being made in the game. But these concerns were not taken into consideration by Epic Games until the “CourageJD incident”, in which he quit a $400,000 competitive tournament which made headlines. Additionally, pro players like Tfue have also voiced their concern over the way Epic Games has been changing the game, which affects competitive matches. We’ve seen that with Fortnite World Cup solo winner “Bugha”, in which he utilized the new added “shadow bomb” to perfection, completely outplaying the competition. If the shadow bomb wasn’t added prior to the World Cup, the results might have been different all around.

Well, after Courage quit the competitive tournament, Epic Games said they were going to make changes to the BRUTE the next day.

Flashbacks of Paragon

With all the mishaps surrounding Fortnite, and the way Epic Games have handled the situation with BRUTE, many players are starting to compare Fortnite to Paragon. For those who don’t know, Paragon was another successful title from Epic Games. In Fact, many similarities can be made between the two games, and the Fortnite community on Reddit has pointed this out. The Reddit user, u/chillhomer, uploaded a video showcasing the similarities of both Fortnite and Paragon, and some users are saying it’s dead-on:

Here is the video:

As you can see there is some valid concern for Fortnite as the cycles seem similar to each other. The video showcases overpowered abilities, and weapons. The video also shows the updates some Summer 2017 (Superville Laves Epic), and the new Dawn update which was supposed to make everything faster in its card system. But most importantly, the video shows a post about “Paragon players rage over pay-to-win monetization changes and loot crates”. Lastly, the gameplay update in which the “increased attack speed” in Paragon was to cater to people who weren’t good with their aim, aka the BRUTE in Fortnite. In the end, players complained and Epic Games didn’t do much to change anything in the game. One user on Reddit wrote:

“EPIC dropped a patch changing how the game was played at its core. Immediately after this update Paragon’s player based dropped by 75% (240k to 60k) because the new update “ruined the game.” EPIC then shutdown Paragon to move its staff to a more promising title (Fortnite). ” source

Paragon trickled away from the scene, and players move to other games. Similarily, one Twitter user also brought in H1Z1 to the dicussion, one of the first sucessful battle royale games.

There once was this cool battle royale game called H1Z1. It had some really interesting shooting mechanics that made it stand out and feel different from other FPS games… Then, one day, for no reason, they completely changed the shooting mechanics and killed their game. — Tyler | Code WILDCAT (@I_AM_WILDCAT) August 27, 2019

Will History Repeat Itself?

The core user base in Fornite is concerned Epic Games is repeating history, and the way they dropped the ball with Paragon will also repeat with Fortnite. Although the comparisons to H1Z1 and Paragon are eerily similar, Epic Games has taken action to nerf BRUTE (finally listening to Fortnite players), and continuously add new patches to fix the game. To say that Epic Games isn’t being proactive and keeping the interest of their users at the top would be false. But, is the damage already done? Many popular streamers have left Fortnite to play other games temporarily. Will the same thing happen to Fortnite as it did with Paragon? We’ll need to find out.