The Fortnite team Talon has parted ways with 3 players. Allegations arose that they cheated in the last tournament, Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS). The winner of the tournament exposed them. One player claims he is receiving death threats, even though he is only 13 years old.
Which tournament is it about? The Fortnite Champion Series is a lengthy online tournament divided into 12 sub-tournaments:
- There are 6 regions.
- PC players have their own division, while all others compete in a different division.
- Duos compete against each other.
The current cheating incident involves the “Consoles/Mobile” division in the “NA West” region, affecting players with controllers or on smartphones on the West Coast of the USA.
The tournament has recently concluded and the winners are known. However, there is an unfortunate addendum.
“Hey, do you want to kill us for some easy points?”
The players involved: It concerns 2 duos that belong to the team “Talon”, a relatively young esports team that has been active in Fortnite since early March and has apparently recruited many particularly young players. The players are not shown personally but appear as avatars in social media posts and YouTube videos.
At the end of the competition, the following situation occurred:
- The players Ruben and Drew were in a somewhat successful team.
- The player Fayde was with his duo partner in an unsuccessful team.
- All 3 players belonged to the organization Talon.
Fayde offered his clanmates that they could just farm their duo easily and get some extra points for the competition. The teams discussed this (“Don’t make it too obvious”) and arranged a meeting in Salty Springs, and the unsuccessful team actually let themselves be eliminated.
Winner snitches: Console tournament is a joke
How did this come out? The winner of the tournament, Paulix, was in a duo with a member of Talon. He publicly revealed the arrangement on Twitter with the remark “The console tournament is a joke.”
As a result, some were outraged on Twitter. The incident was taken up by a YouTuber.
This is why it’s cheating: Such arrangements clearly violate the rules of Epic Games. They want fair tournaments in Fortnite, so such arrangements are considered cheating.
Teams that cheated more cleverly and left no written evidence have also been exposed and punished.
Bans due to “arrangements” have existed in Fortnite for some time: Even during the qualification for the Fortnite World Cup 2019, such problems arose. At that time, the caught cheaters managed to qualify for the World Cup afterward. That was a scandal.
This is the reaction: Team Talon reacted immediately and expelled all 3 players involved in the incident. It is said that this is not behavior that they support.
Talon stands for principles like “trust”, and they have taken all steps to resolve the issues.
They send me death threats and I am only 13
One of the players, Ruben, has already apologized for the incident. He now feels unfairly cornered and, after the YouTube video, is in the crosshairs of angry viewers.
He says: “People are sending me death threats. I am literally a kid. I am only 13 years old.”
he made a vid on me and all his fans are literally sending death threats i’m literally a kid i’m 13
— ruben (@RvbennFN) April 22, 2020
Cheating incidents are increasing in Fortnite
The esports scene of Fortnite has been struggling with an integrity problem since it switched to “fully online”. Such “arrangements” and “cheating incidents” keep surfacing and coming to light.
Particularly young players, who do not seem to fully realize the consequences of such arrangements and rule violations, are repeatedly caught.
Even prominent Twitch streamers publicly violate clear rules and are then pulled from circulation for months.
For instance, the Twitch streamer UnknownxArmy, a “controller god”, was caught cheating during a tournament. He filmed himself on Twitch reading the Twitch chat and thus accessing information that he shouldn’t have had.
The title image is from the Twitter account of Team Talon.
