Week 5 of the WC Qualifier in Fortnite was pure stress for many players. Epic removed vehicles from the game, which destroyed the strategies of many professionals.
This is what happened: During the WC Qualifier in week 5, there were apparently numerous bugs related to vehicles. Epic suddenly decided to remove vehicles from the game. At least for this week.
For many professionals, this meant stress, as many strategies are based on vehicles and they were suddenly gone. Additionally, there is the new map of Season 9 and new weapons, which were met with poor reception among professionals.
There is great stress in the eSport of Fortnite
This is how Fortnite explains the removal of vehicles: A bug that prevented players from exiting vehicles caused Epic to remove all vehicles for week 5. The developer announced this on Twitter and removed the vehicles shortly before the start of the qualifier rounds on Sunday.
This is the problem with vehicles: Especially the Balloon is an extremely popular tool among professionals in the endgame. It protects you from numerous shots and allows rapid access to high places.
Therefore, many professionals’ strategy is to secure a Balloon in the round in order to position themselves well in the endgame.
Such strategies are often practiced by professionals for days in advance, and now the vehicles were completely disabled for the week. Therefore, the strategy did not work.
There is more stress: Not only the disabled vehicles were a problem, but also the weapons. Thus, the end of Season 8 brought back the Drum Gun – a weapon that was actually too strong for the game and was therefore originally removed.
Moreover, the old shotgun was removed from the game and replaced with a new “Combat Shotgun.” However, this weapon is significantly weaker than the old shotgun, which is why the professionals had to start with a new weapon set.
How did the professionals react to this? Players like Tfue, who had already qualified before, were schadenfreude. He wrote, “I am so glad I don’t have to play this week!”
Nevertheless, he wished other players good luck for this week. His pro colleague “cloak” simply replied, “Fuck off.” He was probably not very happy with the removal of vehicles.
Player “Tom 72hrs” writes: “Good, there goes my whole strategy!” referring to his statement that the Balloon is the most important thing in the game.
Ninja also didn’t do very well in week 5. He was eliminated on Saturday:
