Epic pulls overpowered Infinity Blade from Fortnite, says it ‘messed up’

Epic Games announced on Friday afternoon that the Infinity Blade, Fortnite’s newest weapon, which was added to the game earlier this week and has been a major source of fan outrage since, has been removed.

“We messed up and rolled the Infinity Blade overpowered/without good counters, especially in the end game,” Epic said on the Fortnite Twitter account. “The Infinity Blade has been Vaulted and we are re-evaluating our approach to Mythic items. Thanks for calling us out on this!”

On Thursday, Epic released a post on the game’s subreddit detailing its thoughts on the Infinity Blade. The post noted a few nerfs to the weapon were on the way, including not letting players harvest or build while they were using it. This did nothing to sate irate fans who argued that harvesting and building weren’t the problems with the weapon but that there was no way to build against the Infinity Blade. To make things worse, Epic also mentioned that the Infinity Blade was just the first of the “Mythic” weapons that would be added to Fortnite with more coming in the future.

However, after another day of players begging Epic to take the weapon out of the game, it seems the company has reconsidered and vaulted the weapon. In Fortnite, the term “vaulting” is used when a weapon or item is taken out of the game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone forever. Vaulted items can return to the game after a substantial rework. However, it remains to be seen if this is the plan with the Infinity Blade or the other Mythic items, or if Epic has simply scrapped the idea entirely.

The Infinity Blade spawned once per game, always in the same place, and replaced the entire inventory of the player who picked it up. It also gave them more health and shields, allowed them to move faster, and let them smash through any and all structures instantly. As soon as the weapon was added, the community quickly took issue with the fact that good players who got the sword were almost invincible and that there was no viable counter to the sword. The Infinity Blade’s visuals came directly from the Epic’s mobile game of the same name, which the company removed from the iOS app store earlier this week.

The weapon’s addition and the extremely powerful state it was released in were exacerbated by the fact that it was brought to the game on the same day as the semifinals for the North American Winter Royale tournament. The tournament, which featured pro players and was streamed on Epic’s official Fortnite Twitch channel, gave players a magnified look at how strong the sword was, and how thoroughly it could undermine the building that makes up the basis of the game.