Data miner says skill-based matchmaking has returned to squads in Fortnite

Fortnite‘s skill-based matchmaking has been the subject of many arguments since its implementation in 2019. 

A popular data miner tweeted last night that the system was readded to the squads game mode after it was reported to be removed at the beginning of May.

Though Epic had been communicative for the last couple of weeks, the developer hasn’t issued a statement about the rumored change. The number of bots that appeared in squads lobbies increased drastically after the removal of skill-based matchmaking, however, so there’s a chance that the developer might be experimenting with new tweaks to better fix the issue.

The system was reverted in the squads mode mainly due to concerns from the community. Popular Fortnite players like Tfue and SypherPK came forward and said skill-based matchmaking was the plague of content creation since it made stream sniping easier.

Pros weren’t the only players who were unhappy with the system, though. Many casual players felt pub games were becoming as hard as Arena mode matches. The system was unforgiving for new players since they’d get matched against seasoned veterans after securing a couple of wins.

The state of the game after the removal of the system was also criticized since there were lobbies with 60 to 90 bots, which was nothing like the random matchmaking system Fortnite had before skill-based matchmaking was introduced to the game.

Without any comments from Epic, it’s unclear whether the developer reimplemented the old system after raising concerns surrounding AI players or a tweaked version to make both competitive and casual crowds happy.