Ninja And Tfue Split On The Current State Of ‘Fortnite’

Fortnite

Epic

Not go full KEEMSTAR here, but last night I was interested to watch two of the biggest Fortnite streamers in the world have a…spirited interaction about the state of the game. Here’s Ninja replying to Tfue, who was complaining about the current state of the game.

Language warning:

Ninja takes issue with Tfue trashing the game despite continuing to play it almost non-stop, saying that he’s been enjoying it since Gotham City hit. He’s probably been bolstered by the fact that he recently set a world duos win streak record with Reverse2K. In general, Ninja has seemed to enjoy streaming a lot more since his move to Mixer, despite whatever viewership losses he’s taken.

Tfue didn’t respond to Ninja (yet), but this divide does seem to represent a larger split in the Fortnite community as of late, those who like the current state of the game and those who don’t. One constant topic of conversation has been the introduction of Skill-Based Matchmaking, or SBMM, which has supposed to have made matches more even among players, but for many players, particularly those at the higher end of the skill spectrum, it’s created long queue times and a mode that more closely resembles Arena. Later in this conversation, even Ninja goes on to push back against SBMM, saying he doesn’t think it’s the answer.

All of this may not really matter in a short period of time here, as it seems like Fortnite is poised for a major change in the wake of season 11, be it an entirely new map or at least a huge chunk of the map changing, far larger than what we normally see. The Rift Zones will be gone, so we won’t be able to debate those anymore, and it’s unclear what other changes we’ll see in the game. Season 11 will also introduce bots for the first time in live matches, giving lower skill players something to kill.

We will see what Epic does about SBMM and if it sticks around. Right now it’s only limited to solos, but they’re going to expand it going forward for now.

Fortnite is in sort of a precarious position right now heading into a big fall release season with monsters like Modern Warfare on the horizon and Apex Legends surging in popularity once more with its own brand new map. Fortnite is going to have to do something to make a splash, and simultaneously satisfy both casuals and its hardest core influencer playerbase. We’ll see if they can manage that soon enough.

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