Fortnite Bug Hurts Tactical SMG Users

A Fortnite bug has been identified by Epic Games that makes the battle royale game's Tactical SMG somewhat unreliable.

The bug appears to only affect the game's Tactical SMG and prevents guns from being properly reloaded despite what players would expect to happen after the reload animation is completed. This bug was brought to Epic Games' attention through different reports such as the most recent bug thread post on the Fortnite Battle Royale subreddit where Epic Games asks players to report any bugs with each update, the most recent one in this case being v3.5.

A user commented a few days ago to say that they reloaded their SMG only to have to reload it a second time for the gun to properly be reloaded. Others upvoted the post in agreement and offered their own accounts of the bug, and Epic Games responded with a comment that let players know the devs are aware of the bug.

"We're aware of that issue and have a fix set to go out in v3.6 for that. Thanks!" Epic Games said on Reddit.

In response to Epic Games' comment, another user pointed out that the bug has supposedly been around for weeks now and asked why it couldn't just be hotfixed. Epic Games didn't address the suggestion that the bug has been around for weeks as opposed to being just introduced in v3.5, but another Epic Games representative did explain why hotfixing bugs isn't always possible.

"Hot fixing is changing data values between one tested state and another," Epic Games explained. "Bugs in the game code require new builds and a round of testing. Our minimum turnaround time for those kinds of issues is usually a week, unless it's a drop-everything gamebreaker."

Another post on Reddit that came several days before the bug thread comments brought attention to the SMG bug again, though this one specifically mentioned the Tactical SMG. While Epic Games didn't comment in this post, it's the one that's been credited on the game's Trello board that tracks ongoing issues. The site tracks community issues and currently has the Tactical SMG bug listed as one that's been fixed in a future release with no workaround available.

The Tactical SMG is not reloading after the animation finishes," the description of the Tactical SMG bug reads. "Players are sometimes forced to reload the weapon more than once in order for the reload to work."

Update v3.6 doesn't yet have a release date, but be wary of using the Tactical SMG in a heated battle until the issue has been resolved.