Epic Games is a developer bucking a trend: it's adding more bots to its games in the new Fortnite v10.40 update
That might seem odd, given many game creators are trying their best to remove bots from their games, but Epic Games has new ideas for Fortnite Battle Royale.
The developer announced in a recent blog post that it's updating the Battle Royale's matching and, as part of this, adding in-game bots to "provide a better path for players to grow in skill".
These bots will act like human players and will work in conjunction with the new matchmaking system - the better players get, the fewer bots they will encounter.
The idea is to include more reasons to play without the pressure of 'live' combat, allowing users to become more comfortable at honing their skills and using integrated smarts to match the experience levels.
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A match made in heaven?
Speaking of matching, Epic Games is also updating its matchmaking mode, after admitting in the post the core of the game - when it comes to offering players of similar skill levels - has previously 'remained largely unchanged'.
However, as players have become more skilled, this lack of change has caused an obstacle to improvement. Therefore, in Fortnite's v10.40 update, Epic Games is introducing "improved matchmaking logic to Battle Royale core modes to create fairer matches".
This will mean that you're likely to match with players of similar skill, so as you get better your opponents should too.
Epic Games plans to roll this new feature out slowly so it can monitor how effective it actually is. The inclusion of bots is a part of this update, aiming to make game's fairer for players by matching them with those of similar skill.
However, the question of how keen players will be to play against bots rather than humans is debatable. Luckily, when it comes to rank play, this won't be an issue as bots will not be present in Competitive mode.
This improved matchmaking and bot feature will be added as part of the next release, with the Fortnite's v10.40 update set for October.
