Epic calls off Fortnite tournament after the same map-destroying bug comes up 5 times in a row

What's the worst thing that could happen during a Fortnite tournament? I guess for many, the answer would simply be 'losing,' but one competitive player managed to get so unlucky that they encountered a map-breaking bug five games in a row before Epic Games eventually decided to cancel the rest of the tournament. Ouch.

Over on Twitter, @Takiilmao (AKA Takii) has shared a clip of the moment where everything started to go wrong during the Reload Performance Evaluation earlier this week. As the Reload game kicks off, it's immediately obvious that something is off – other players quickly begin backing out, and there's no doubt as to why: "Look at the map, it's bugged as shit."

THE MAPS ARE MERGED TOGETRHER??? pic.twitter.com/V7R0CwlEzXNovember 4, 2024

Reload's new Oasis map, which was added last week at the start of Chapter 2 Remix, is there, sort of, but it appears to have formed some sort of chaotic map sandwich with the main Battle Royale island. Location names in the menu's map are overlapping as the likes of Lizard Links, Salty Springs, and The Doggpound all desperately attempt to exist simultaneously, and in the brief amount of time you can see the map itself, you can see that there's way too much greenery. Needless to say, it's definitely not meant to look like that, even if it actually looks pretty cool.

Takii quickly backed out of the match "because I thought the lobby would be bugged and it wouldn't count so I went into a different game," but the bug followed: "Believe it or not it happened the next four games," the player explains. 

In the end though, none of that would have ended up mattering at all, because a couple of hours later, the official Fortnite Status account confirmed that the rest of the cup had been called off because of the bug. "We've canceled the remainder of the Reload Performance Evaluation Cup due to an issue causing multiple maps to be present in a match," it wrote. "Thank you for participating in the Performance Evaluation Cup, which helped identify this issue."

It's a truly bizarre bug, but one I imagine many people would actually want to get so that they could explore the chaos. In the middle of a tournament, though? The timing couldn't have been much worse.

While you're here, be sure to check out our guide on how to complete the many Fortnite quests in Chapter 2 Remix.