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Fortnite: Battle Royale Update Details Voice-Chat Plans, PermaBans, and More

Epic lays out the blueprint for the new Battle Royale mode going forward.

September 28, 2017 3:15 PM

Epic Games recently made their new Battle Royale mode free-to-play in Fortnite and, despite a little heat from the PUBG developers, is continuing to promote the new mode with a dev update addressing community questions. The team addresses concerns about the newly added Squads and Duos mode and paints a picture for the future of Battle Royale.

The update, posted on the official Fortnite YouTube channel, features the producer and systems designer of Battle Royale answer some frequent questions from the community. Currently, the game doesn't feature in-game voice chat and the duo say that it's a priority before they consider Squads trully "complete". They do recommend the use of Discord in the meantime, though, and you can just use Party chat on consoles when you play. Squads and Duos went live in this week's 1.6.3 update which coincided with the move to free-to-play.

When it comes to stats and leaderboards, the Epic team is hoping to have something in place around November. When asked about first-person servers, an addition that was recently made to PUBG, they clarified that it is not something that fits the Fortnite formula.

Lastly, they address cheaters and it seems like Epic is taking an approach even more intense than Rocket League and Blizzard's recent permaban solution. Epic isn't providing exact details on what they'll consider ban-worthy in Fortnite's Battle Royale mode, but cheaters will be permanently banned across all Epic products if caught (update below).This is a pretty interesting approach and we're reaching out to the team to get further comment on how this works. We'll update as soon as possible.

While Epic is definitely putting their full efforts behind the Battle Royale mode, which is certainly a smart move in this climate, they aren't leaving behind Fortnite's base Save The World campaign mode. Once the Survive The Storm mode ends on October 2nd, a new mode called Horde Bash will go live where players build pre-built bases and taking on waves of monsters. They'll also be doing a Halloween event featuring the new Hextlevania world location.

Update: We reached out to Epic about the permaban statement and got a bit of clarification. The company is taking cheating seriously across all of their products, but being caught cheating in one doesn't ban you from all. If you're banned in a game, it just stands for that one game.

Charles Singletary Jr

News Editor

Charles Singletary Jr keeps the updates flowing as the News Editor, breaking stories while investigating the biggest topics in gaming and technology. He's pretty active on Twitter, so feel free to reach out to him @The_CSJR. Got a hot tip? Email him at Charles.Singletary@Shacknews.com.

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