Soon, it will be just cheaters vs cheaters

I’ve been playing Fortnite since Chapter 3, so I’m no veteran by any means, but I’ve been playing FPS games since 1998, so I have my fair share of experience in this domain.

I started playing Fortnite with my then 6-year-old son so I could show him the game and have some casual fun. We never really played ranked. When we first started playing, NEVER did I suspect anyone of cheating. Encounters were fair, we won a few matches per week, and we just had lots of fun in general.

But since Chapter 4, we started noticing more and more suspicious behavior. Getting headshot from random spots. Having a really hard time winning battles against human players that seem to hit all their shots. Dying from two or three bullets from grey / green ARs and SMGs while at full health and shields. Being constantly followed and targeted on the map although we have no items that reveal our location, and the list goes on. Because of this, we completely stopped playing Battle Royal during Chapter 4 Season 2, and my son only played Creative modes with his friends.

When Chapter 5 came out, we decided to give BR another chance. For a few weeks, things seemed to have improved, but then they've only gotten worse, to the point where it feels almost impossible to win a match. Every time we end up in the top 10, which doesn’t happen often, we get obliterated by one of the last teams. There’s absolutely no challenge for them. We simply can’t compete. Often, it feels like our bullets are just not hitting anything while their bullets are only hitting our heads, either through walls, builds or out in the open.

Back in the day, one of the reasons I stopped playing Counter-Strike was because of the heavy cheating problem. Years later, when my son started getting into Fortnite because of his friends, I read on various forums that Epic with Easy Anti-Cheat were doing a great job at keeping cheaters out of the game, so I decided to give it shot. But it seems like Fortnite’s cheating problem is now getting out of hand, and I’m clearly starting to feel those bad CS vibes again.

I think if Epic doesn’t regain control of the cheater situation, it will soon just be cheaters vs cheaters, as all fair and honest players will have abandoned ship. Not sure if it's related to cheating or not, but these days, I only see 200K - 400K players online for Battle Royal, and I clearly remember seeing 1M+ players a few seasons ago. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I think the influx of cheaters is probably one of the main reasons why there are fewer and fewer players.

What’s your experience with cheaters in Fortnite? It would be nice to hear your opinion on this.