Fortnite Players Want Update 8.20 Changes Reverted

Updating a game is no easy feat, regardless of the update's contents. It's always a balancing act between new additions and quality of life changes. When you're Epic Games and dealing with a massively popular game, you walk a razor-thin tightrope when updating Fortnite. It seems the Maryland-based company has fallen on the razor, as fans are calling for the developers to revert recent changes.

Update 8.20 was released last week, introducing a new Floor Is Lava LTM, the poison dart trap floor construction, health and shield consumables, and more. The biggest change in terms of gameplay, however, is found in the mechanics centered around health and materials, something that isn't touched further in April 2's 8.20 content update.

The v7.40 update introduced Pop-Up Cups, a series of adjustments that saw players receiving 50 health or shield based on current health when an elimination occurs, 50/50/50 materials dropped on eliminations, 500/500/500 cap on materials, and a 40% increase to harvesting. Update v8.20 takes all that away, reverting the game back to the pre-v7.40 version. Now, these adjustments only appear in Fortnite's new Arena game mode.

To say fans are disappointed is an understatement. Many have taken to Twitter to express their discontent, with the collective consensus screaming "revert!" The Uno reverse card is popping up all over the official announcement tweet from Fortnite. One Twitter user screenshot a Twitch photo indicating that Uno was watched more than Fortnite--if only by a hundred or so views.

Even Tyler "Ninja" Blevins hopped on the social media platform to express his opinions on the latest patch. He starts with briefly breaking down the changes to the infantry rifle, which received a debuff and no longer shoots across the map like a sniper rifle. He then gets to the changes made to health and shield. "The shield upon killing people and the health upon killing people in solos/duos/squads... I mean, boy I really want that back. I think everyone wants it back," Ninja says in a video. Epic says the change is because it led to "an unhealthy level of aggressive play, diminishing other viable strategies." Ninja, however, believes otherwise. "It was 100% [because] they just want to make solos, duos, and squads a place for safety for the newer players."

Epic Games has yet to comment on the backlash regarding these changes.