Fortnite has now been officially announced for China. It will be distributed by the giant Tencent. Epic welcomes the Chinese players with a “Ni Hao” and greets them with a special skin. Meanwhile, local Fortnite players fear a wave of cheaters.
As reported by MMO-Culture, Fortnite is indeed coming to China. This was officially announced today.
The gaming giant Tencent will distribute the game there. This means that everything that looks like Battle Royale is firmly in Tencent’s hands: They also distribute PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and H1Z1 in China. Tencent’s symbol is a penguin. Tencent is huge: they are about as big as Activision-Blizzard, Take Two, Ubisoft, and EA combined.
In a video, the developers of Epic Games greet with “Ni Hao.” That means something like “Hello.”
Tencent distributes PUBG, H1Z1, and Fortnite in China
That Tencent is taking the rights to Fortnite is not surprising. After all, they have owned 40% of Epic Games, the developers of Fortnite, since 2013.
All western games should better have a local partner in China, otherwise, there will be problems with the government. For PUBG, it was said that it did not comply with the socialist principles of the Chinese Republic. However, the concerns disappeared when Tencent came on board. They are said to have excellent connections to the Chinese government.
Interestingly, how the trailer Fortnite: Battle Royale is tailored to Chinese players:
Currently, there is no release date for Fortnite in China yet. However, it is already known what goodies will be given to the players.
Players will receive a glider, a special emote, and a China-exclusive skin to encourage them to sign up and invite friends.
Players fear a wave of cheaters, want region lock in Fortnite
The release of Fortnite in China has been coming for a while. Players from the West view this with skepticism. After all, China is considered a stronghold of cheaters. There, companies like Dell even specifically advertise cheats, because “cheating” is considered clever in Chinese culture. Since people play in Internet cafes in China, it is also difficult to catch scammers.
A current Reddit post in Fortnite “If the game comes to China, then region-lock it” has received over 17,300 upvotes within a few days.
What is a region lock? With a “region lock,” players cannot switch servers but must play on the server designated for their region.
Moreover, some Fortnite fans fear a shake-up of power, as GamePro reports: China is an important market for Fortnite, but it differs significantly from the West. There, PC and mobile are leading. Many Fortnite players in the West are on Xbox One and PS4. There are concerns that Epic might neglect the development of Fortnite on PS4 and Xbox One in the future.
Whether Fortnite players here will also face cheating problems when the Chinese come to Fortnite is still unknown.
