Epic Games
- Update 9/29/17: Duos matchmaking is coming next week.
To coincide with the release date of Fortnite: Battle Royale, Epic Games also released patch 1.6.3 that added a bunch of new features into the mode. Outside of the news of Battle Royale going free-to-play, the other big addition was Squad matchmaking.
Squad matchmaking allows you and up to three other players to matchmake and enter the game together. You could also go in solo and allow it to autofill your squad if you don’t have any friends who happen to play the game. If you decide to just play with a single friend, you may find yourself at a disadvantage as many of the players you run across will be 4-man teams and two versus four are never good odds.
The patch notes say Duos matchmaking has been added but that isn’t the case just yet. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll find this note that says the mode hasn’t been activated yet.
The Squad match type (up to four-player teams) is available to play immediately. Duos (two-player teams) will be activated when there are enough players to support matchmaking in both modes.
Epic is likely waiting until a consistent playerbase builds up to warrant three separate matchmaking modes. It’s still possible to win a match with two players if you go into the Squad matchmaking but it is much harder. With Duos, every team you come across will be a two person team so things will likely be a lot easier there and you don’t have to worry about being steamrolled.
Over 1 million players have partied on the Battle Bus during the first day of Battle Royale! Thank you and party on! 🙌🎉🚍
Fortnite: Battle Royale has only been available for a little over a day but has already reached one million players. This is across Xbox One, PS4 and PC so the numbers are inflated by that but we have seen an early support for the game.
We might be looking at a week or so before the mode is implementing so Epic can make sure this initial surge of players sticks around. With this being a free-to-play title, there’s a lot of players trying it out and either deciding it’s good or dropping it for something else. On the other hand, it’s possible we could be looking at the mode being activated as soon as tomorrow since the one million player announcement was made today.
Whatever the case may be, we’re sure the mode is coming sooner rather than later. Fortnite has seen a surge in its Twitch viewership since its release, even with it surpassing PUBG for a brief period of time.
Fortnite: Battle Royale is out now for Xbox One, PS4 and PC via the Epic Games Launcher.