FORTNITE Chapter 4 was released at the start of the month, and some players have marked the latest update as “unplayable”.
Creator Epic Games has upgraded the game engine that is running Fortnite in order to improve performance.
Fortnite is under fire.
Fortnite now runs on Unreal Engine 5.1 the latest update to Epic’s proprietary engine, which runs smoothly on the current generation of consoles.
Those playing on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and high-end PCs have reported that the game runs smoothly on their platforms.
Those playing on Nintendo Switch, and even mobile have reported no issues when running Fortnite.
Despite the lower technical performance of these systems, it appears that the update was thoroughly playtested before release.
However, those playing on PlayStation 4, and Xbox One have claimed that the older consoles are unable to run the latest engine smoothly.
Players have reported that occasionally the game ‘stutters’, which is when the game freezes for a short time.
In many games this wouldn’t be as big an issue, but Fortnite is a live service game, meaning you play with others in real time.
If the game freezes for even a second, your character is vulnerable. Anyone can find you and take you down, removing you from the game.
When someone takes you out in Fortnite, you are removed from the match permanently and have to start again from a hundred players.
The studio is usually quick to deal with these issues, but the team has been unable to address them the past few weeks.
The version 23.10 update was released for Fortnite on December 13, and the development team went on winter break shortly afterwards.
Epic Games will return around January 3, which is when the issue is likely to be resolved.
It may take a few days after this before the fixes are released for the game.
Until then those playing on older consoles will likely have to wait for more updates, or suffer through performance issues.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
