Epic Games has apparently seen and heard enough. Less than a week after it was added to the game,
Fortnite’s Mythic Infinity Blade has been removed from Battle Royale.
In a
post on the Fortnite subreddit, the developer admitted,
“We messed up and rolled out the Infinity Blade overpowered [and] without good counters, especially in the end game.”
Added to
Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode with
patch 7.01, the Infinity Blade was not only the game’s first melee weapon (not counting the pickaxe). It was also the first Mythic classified weapon, granting players additional abilities while wielding it, including increased max health and shields, increased movement speed, and more. Only one Infinity Blade appeared in a match and could only be found in a pedestal atop Polar Peak.
Prior to removing the weapon from
Fortnite, Epic
had posted a separate message to the community discussing potential changes to the Infinity Blade that would make it less overpowered. They proposed removing the ability to build and harvest while wielding the Blade.
“When designing the Infinity Blade the goal was to provide a weapon with inherent risk to balance out the great capability it provides - the ability to harvest/build removes a great deal of that risk. By taking away the ability to harvest/build we hope to tune the Infinity Blade to where it feels risky to have, but still satisfying to wield.”
In that same previous message, Epic had also attempted to explain the reasoning for Mythic items within Battle Royale.
“The presence of Mythic items in gameplay is to provide an interaction a step above the Legendary item functionality and something you’ll continue to see. To us, that means changing the way the game is played for those who interact with that item. The addition of items in this tier provide new and flavorful ways to interact with the map and generally shake up normal play across default modes.”
For now, the Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and Epic stated they are “re-evaluating our approach to Mythic Items.” What this means for the future of the Infinity Blade or any other types of Mythic Items remains to be seen. Do you believe the Infinity Blade was overpowered and agree with its removal from
Fortnite?