Fortnite's AI Bots Are Even Worse Than You Realized

The next time you play a game of "Fortnite OG," try to remember that you might be gaming in the Matrix. Recent findings from a trusted "Fortnite" dataminer and leaker indicate that over 90% of players in the classic OG mode might not be humans at all.

Bots in "Fortnite" are nothing new, and before now they really haven't been a huge bother for players. For decades online games have been plagued by bots that cheaters set up to win matches for them automatically, but the bots in "Fortnite" were actually put there by Epic Games itself. The idea is that low-skill AI bots can fill in the gaps when there aren't enough people for a full 100-player map. The bots also allow other low-skill players, like total newbies or video game news writers with limited practice time, to get in a few kills before getting taken out by people who grind the game on a regular basis.

The problem is that it now appears as if Epic has turned "Fortnite OG" into an AI-dominated game. Some matches are almost completely filled with incompetent bots, and that's damaging the game for human players of all skill levels. "Fortnite" has had quite an evolution since it was first released, but this latest development has some fans worried that the game mode they originally fell in love with might be on life support.

Bots have been in "Fortnite" for a while now, and every so often their presence rubs fans the wrong way. For years, "Fortnite" Reddit pages have been filled with comments from players trying to figure out just how many bots they're encountering in the game. Some players find that the presence of bots makes matches too easy and skews the experience for them, and others just don't like the idea that they're spending hours interacting with fake gamers.

Recently the bot concerns kicked into overdrive, and a "Fortnite" dataminer called AllyJax decided to look into the situation. AllyJax has been a reliable source for behind-the-scenes information about "Fortnite" in the past, and used a Discord tool to analyze just how many bots are in the current version of "Fortnite OG." What they found was surprising. "The minimum real player count has been reduced from 25 to as low as 8," AllyJax wrote on X.

That means it's possible that less than 10% of the players in "Fortnite OG" are actually humans. The numbers were so dismal that they convinced AllyJax to stop doing any more analysis of the game mode as a whole. "I'm done doing player count tests until this mode is in a better state, this is a waste of my time," AllyJax wrote in another post. AllyJax clearly wasn't happy with this discovery, and other "Fortnite" players feel the same way.

"Fortnite" has been around for a long time, and the game's been through plenty of ups and downs. Currently some modes on "Fortnite" are as popular as ever, but fans think that the bot issue affecting "Fortnite OG" has been caused by a shrinking player base.

"Fortnite OG" frequently sees less than 50,000 active players, and that can make matchmaking difficult. For reference, "Marvel Rivals" lost 77% of its players, but that game is still seeing up to 150,000 players on a daily basis. The bots in "Fortnite" might be necessary to keep the game alive, but their presence also makes some gamers question why they're even playing. "Placing top 10 isn't even a thing anymore bruh you're already top 10 when the game starts now," wrote one fan on X.

What's really concerning is that this bot trend might be expanding beyond "Fortnite OG." One fan wrote, "I used to analyze my save files and regularly saw only 15-20 real players in BR lobbies." There's no shortage of game modes in "Fortnite," but fans still don't want to see Battle Royale and other modes fall by the wayside. Epic hasn't said anything to clarify its thinking about the bots in "Fortnite OG," so for now fans will just have to wait and see if their complaints convince the company to change its strategy.