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Epic Games has said that the Fortnite B.R.U.T.E. mechs won’t be nerfed any further and will stay overpowered so that ‘anyone can win’, in a news post on the Epic Games site.
The mechs have been criticised for skewing the game balance, because once two players have hopped in a B.R.U.T.E., the competition is annihilated with its speed, abilities, and heavy armaments. If — and that’s a really tiny if — the B.R.U.T.E. is destroyed, the ejected duo still possess full health and all the materials the mech harvested in its wake of destruction. A nerf was applied to the power up in the v10.10 update, which added a targeting laser and a directional sound cue so players would theoretically be able to avoid vaporisation.
In the news post, Epic Games stated it has listened to player feedback on the mechs, and iterated the Fortnite philosophy. Its core tenet is ‘to bring players of all skill levels together to have a fun experience where anyone can win.’ And that means adding features that ‘provide spectacle and entertainment when playing Fortnite,’ so the mechs will not be nerfed.
‘The B.R.U.T.E. was added at the start of Season X with this mission in mind. Since then, we have seen players who had previously struggled with getting eliminations acquiring more, while the number of eliminations earned by more experienced players remained steady,’ Epic Games explained further. It justified the decision and displayed data on how many B.R.U.T.E. eliminations are happening in each game type. In solos, the mech averages about four kills every game, and about six kills in duos, squads, and Team Rumble. In Arena modes, the mechs achieve an average of one kill per match.
The data matches up to what Epic Games asserted, but still players are not pleased with the decision to leave the B.R.U.T.E.s alone. ‘We regularly have and will continue to release content that shakes up gameplay in Fortnite in unexpected ways,’ Epic added, and this upset over the mechs sounds very similar to when it added the Infinity Blade in Season 7.
Fortnite has hit the headlines multiple times this week, with Epic Games issuing apologies and refunds for a reskinned pet cosmetic, and it’s contending with a class action lawsuit over Fortnite account hacks. At least it’s the weekend tomorrow.
