December 17, 2018 Fortnite’s Infinity Blade is mostly gone, but the spirit lingers.
Infinity Blade might be gone in its original form on mobile, but the weapon just won’t die in Fortnite. Players are still picking up the sword in normal matches, and though the chances of that happening are now incredibly low, Epic’s acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix to destroy the Infinity Blade for good.
Streamer Quemzi ran into someone wielding the blade over the weekend, and posted a video of the encounter which you can see below. That clip hit the top of the Fortnite subreddit, prompting Epic to respond that the studio is “looking into this now.”
Shortly after, that comment was updated with a more long form response that confirms what’s happening and that the developers are working on a fix.. “We’re now aware that there is a very small chance that the Infinity Blade can spawn in some matches. We are already working on a fix for this which will ensure it won’t appear in any matches. This will be in tomorrow’s v7.10 client update. Thanks so much for the heads up!”
Based on that, it seems there isn’t any exploit to grab the blade – it just sometimes spawns as it normally did before it got vaulted. Quemzi’s clip shows the wielder building with the sword equipped, so this is the pre-nerf version. It’ll soon be fixed, but if you’re playing ahead of tomorrow’s patch stay extra vigilant.
“We messed up and rolled out the Infinity Blade overpowered / without good counters, especially in the end game,” the company said last week on Reddit. “The Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and we are re-evaluating our approach to Mythic items. Thanks for calling us out on this!”
The Infinity Blade was even more controversial among pro players, as it launched hours before the $1 million Winter Royale finals, and generally wrought havoc among the competition. Epic said in a Reddit post that more details on its “competitive philosophy when it comes to new items, updates and seasons” will come next week.
Initial plans for a nerf would have seen the Infinity Blade will no longer be able to harvest materials, and would have prevented you from being able to build while wielding it. While the blade’s ability to suck in materials as rained down destruction was certainly powerful, it’s more the massive health boosts, extraordinary leaping ability, and hugely damaging attacks that had players concerned.
Related: Check out our list of all the Fortnite skins
Epic also had plans to bring in more items like the Infinity Blade as part of a new Mythic item tier beyond Legendary, with the intent to “shake up normal play across default modes.” It seems we don’t have to keep fearing that, either.