Epic Games Announces Major Balancing Changes and Adjustments For All SMG Weapons in Fortnite

Epic Games have released a live update adjusting the SMG weapons in Fortnite Battle Royale.

The balancing changes have been made to all three types currently in the game: SMG, Compact SMG, and Silenced SMG.

The news of these changes was announced by Epic via a post on the Fortnite Twitter page, and subsequently on the FortniteBR Reddit page.

Here is the list of all balancing changes made to the SMG weapons:

• SMG and Compact SMG accuracy bonus reduced from 35% to 15%.
• SMG damage reduced from 19/20/21 to 17/18/19.
• Compact SMG damage reduced from 23/24 to 21/22.
• SMG fire rate reduced from 13 to 12.
• Compact SMG fire rate reduced from 11 to 10.
• SMG, Compact SMG, and Silenced SMG damage falloff.
• Range reduced from 2400/3500/5000 to 2000/3000/4000.
• Percentage reduced from 100/80/65% to 100/70/40%.
• Rare SMG and Compact SMGs drop rates slightly reduced.

The update released to apply these adjustments is a live hotfix, meaning that there is no downtime or manual installation required.

• Read More: Version Two of Playground LTM is Live in Fortnite, But There Are Some Major Bugs

This comes in response to the recently heightened unrest among the majority of Fortnite’s casual and professional player-bases in regards to the overpowered nature of SMGs, particularly with the new Compact variety. 

However, as Epic Games has proven in the past, community feedback plays a huge role in the development of the popular BR title, and this is just another instance where Epic has not hesitated to implement major changes based on players’ opinions and criticisms.