Fortnite’s “$50K bug” in turbo build is being debated by the community

A bug with turbo building in Fortnite: Battle Royale might’ve cost Sentinel’s Owen “Animal” Wright $50,000 and a qualification spot in the World Cup Solo Finals.

This bug happened during a match in the week three qualifiers this weekend. Animal was in the top 26 of his game with full materials, a solid loadout, and good mobility with his Gliders. He started gliding toward the safe zone and, as soon as he landed, he tried to build. None of his walls were placed, and one of his opponents spotted him hopelessly trying to build and eliminated him from the match, making his qualifier run end at 54 points.

Animal said this bug was the “only reason” why he didn’t qualify for the Solo Finals, although he would’ve needed to score at least 11 more points in that same match to guarantee qualification in North America East. “I’m fucking devastated,” Animal said. If he qualified, he would get at least $50,000 for competing in the $30 million Fortnite World Cup Finals in July, even if he came in last place.

Another competitive player shared a video of the same bug happening to him during a competitive match and not letting him build after he landed.

Fortnite YouTuber ImSpeedyGonzales thinks the answer to what caused the build-breaking bug is the automatic placement of player structures through the game’s turbo building. According to him, a change made to the game in patch v8.30 in early April that “added ability to cycle hotbar items while gliding” is causing this bug. “You can switch your builds around, and this has led to some issues when landing,” Gonzales said. “After v8.30, if you have your wall out and you’re clicking turbo build, the wall doesn’t place.” A workaround for players who run into this bug is to let go of their building button and press it again to reactivate turbo building and place walls again.

Gonzales recognizes he can’t confirm this is what happened to Animal, since they haven’t talked to each other. But he reproduced this exact bug in his video and shows his workaround is effective, at least in Creative mode. Animal’s bug could’ve been caused by something different, though.

It’s unlikely that Epic will do anything regarding how negatively affected Animal was by this bug. Players have reported other minor bugs that impacted their gameplay in other stages of the Fortnite World Cup Open Qualifiers, and Epic addressed them in the next update without compensating players who had been affected.

Dot Esports has reached out to Animal and Epic Games for comments, but hasn’t received a reply yet.