Fortnite Cracks Down on Cheaters With New Rule

Fortnite players who want to participate in the game’s competitive events throughout the year [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Fortnite players who want to participate in the game's competitive events throughout the year now have a new rule to abide by following a clarification from Epic Games. The rule in question deals with "collusion," and in Fortnite's case, this means opposing players communicating with each other to share messages during matches. Things like swinging a pickaxe, performing emotes, or even jumping around could be considered examples of collusion, though apparent instances of collusion will be reviewed before actions are taken.

Epic Games outlined its stance on collusion in a post on the developer's site where it addressed players signaling each other in different ways. It reminded people that "players may not work together to deceive or otherwise cheat other players during any match" before outlining some examples of collusion.

Those examples included teaming up or planning with other players how they'll move through the map as well as dropping items for opponents to pick up. The example emphasized by Epic Games in this case can be found below.

"Communication: Sending or receiving signals (both verbal and non-verbal) to communicate with opposing players," Epic Games said.

Elaborating on its stance, Epic Games said it'll be "taking action against any kind of in-game communication between opponents via signaling in official tournament matches" in 2020. Actions which could be interpreted as signaling and therefore collusion include pickaxe swinging, emoting, toy tossing, and jumping, though Epic Games isn't limiting the possibilities to just those actions.

It's not uncommon for players to do any number of these things when they're between firefights in Fortnite, so this sounds as though it might end up being a tricky rule to enforce where some players say their actions carried no meaning and weren't an example of collusion. Epic Games said it'd be reviewing cases before taking action, however.

"Any cases of signaling like those listed above will now result in a teaming/collusion penalty," Epic Games said. "We want to be explicitly clear that pacifism-style gameplay is still allowed, but if signaling is involved, we will review and take appropriate action for the teaming/collusion penalty. Repeat offenders may be subject to increased penalties."

Epic Games' updated collusion rule is in effect now, so expect to see it enforced throughout this year's competitive events.

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