Epic Games bans smurfs in Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3 competitive update
Epic GamesEpic Games has outlined several changes coming to Fortnite with Chapter 2 Season 2 that will seriously impact the competitive integrity of upcoming tournaments.
In an official blog post, the team explained how it intends to keep Fortnite competitive and fair for everyone by banning smurfs from tournaments.
“Effective immediately, players will not be permitted to play in the same session’s tournament across multiple accounts,” Epic wrote, and further detailed how this included restarting a tournament match on a different account to gain an edge – or having multiple people play on one device.
What’s more, with some Cash Cups broken out by Arena Level, smurfing could be a major issue. As such, anyone playing on an account that has a lower level than their main will be in violation of the smurfing rules. According to Epic, this will result in a penalty on both the main and smurf accounts.
Epic Games is also ready to wield the ban hammer if need be. “If a player is caught breaking an official rule that results in a 30-day or longer competitive ban, that player will also be ineligible for the next Season’s FNCS (or other pinnacle event), regardless of competitive ban timing,” they wrote.
Epic GamesMoving on to items, as new items are added throughout the season, there will be a two week “evaluation period,” and items will only be added to Arena and Tournament pools if they add value to competitive play.
They also explained how in some rare cases, items could be changing during the season citing the Remote Explosives as an example.
Finally, as part of a partnership with DreamHack, new online tournaments are in the works with the first competition being the Dreamhack Open in July. More tournaments will be coming each month until January 2021.
It will be interesting to see how the changes affect the game and how they’re received by the community.