Fortnite players are beginning to notice an increase in the number of bots appearing in one of the game’s modes, the recently added Fortnite OG. The @osirion_gg account, on social media platform X, posted that “Bots enabled in OG, 90 bots in low sbmm and 10 bots in high sbmm.” SBMM refers to skill based matchmaking that many online games use to match up players based on what the developers believe is their skill level.
Reddit user Ashcrafter06 posted a video clip on the game’s subreddit showing several bots all running together in one direction, along with the comment “Live footage of AI bots migrating to OG Mode.” One user replied with “Dude why did I laugh so hard at this. . . it’s literally just a bunch of bots running in a straight line and yet I started laughing my as* off. . . my humor is broken.”
However, not everyone in the community is unbothered with the implementation of bots in the OG game mode. One user responded with a rather blunt “f*ck bots,” which was a sentiment back up by another user who said “Seriously! OG was so much fun playing strictly real players, regardless of sweat level.”
Epic leans heavily on bots to populate matches as a way of ensuring that there is always a full lobby, which also gives new players an easier pathway into the game so they’re not obliterated by veteran players. However, with the addition of so many game modes, Epic bound to run into problems with an ever growing number of bots, as the player pool is stretched thin across game types.
It might be time for Epic to reconsider how many game modes it has running at any given time, or at the very least curtail the number of bots, or potentially risk losing a chunk of its player base as they become frustrated by the rise of the bots.