Epic Banned 1100 Cheaters During Fortnite World Cup Qualifier

Cheaters are a common problem on popular games, and though they're never welcome, these players are a particularly serious issue in competitive play when large rewards and glory are on the line. Epic has released a new statement on integrity in its own competitive events, detailing the outcome of its anti-cheater efforts. Among other things, more than 1100 players were banned during the week 1 qualifiers for the Fortnite World Cup.

Epic warns that any players found breaking the rules during competitive games will face both disqualification and penalties, the severity of which will vary based on Epic's decision and any past actions by the account.

In a new report, Epic revealed that it banned 1,163 accounts from competitive play for the duration of two weeks as punishment for playing in multiple regions and circumventing region locks. Of those banned accounts, 196 were prize winners who forfeited their prizes. As well, 48 accounts were banned for two weeks over account sharing.

Surprisingly, only eight accounts were banned for teaming, resulting in the forfeiture of one prize, and one account was banned permanently from the Fortnite game over the use of cheat software during the Semi Finals. That account was able to play for less than five minutes in the tournament before it was identified and perma-banned.

Finally, Epic says that one account was issued a 72-hour ban from competitive play because it purposely disconnected to avoid giving points to another competitor. The company is only able to detect this childish behavior manually based on user reports at this time, but warns that it will be able to 'more widely' detect the action in the future.

Players who were given penalties should think twice before creating a new account to get around the bans — Epic says this will result in being permanently banned from all future competitive Fortnite events. In addition, Epic says it is improving its teaming detection software to eventually use in all game modes. A future announcement will alert players when the tech is live in other non-competitive modes.