Fortnite Desperately Needs an Option to Shoulder Swap

Somehow, in one fell swoop, Epic Games created a masterpiece with Fortnite: Battle Royale. A lot of the initial mechanics of the game have been the same since its inception, but there is one mechanic that is strangely missing from the game: shoulder swapping.

Almost every relevant third-person game released in the past decade has included an option to shoulder swap. For those of you who are unfamiliar, shoulder swapping is simply swapping the camera's vision from one shoulder to the other. In Fortnite, you can't shoulder swap from your left to your right shoulder, which puts you at a disadvantage in certain situations.

Sure, the above player could've done about 100 different things in this situation, but if they had access to a shoulder swap, they could have negated the vision advantage the opponent had. Because the opponent was peeking with their right shoulder, they had the maximum amount of vision into the room, but the above player could only peek with their left shoulder. 

As you can see in the clip, peeking with your left shoulder will put you into situations where you can't see enemies, but they can see you.

This is what shoulder swapping looks like in a AAA title. You can see exactly how much vision is gained by a simple swap of the shoulder camera.

Even PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS, Fortnite's biggest competitor on the market right now, has an option to shoulder swap. Fortnite has so many mechanics that PUBG could never match, but it's strange Epic Games doesn't simply add this mechanic to give players one more reason to choose its game instead of PUBG.

The option to shoulder swap is something most of the Fortnite community wants in the game. Poaches took the initiative, when the game was on the rise, to ask Epic Games if it had any plans about implementing the feature in the future. Arctyczyn ​of Epic Games said "​this is something we are already actively discussing, in addition to a number of other camera related options/adjustments." 

That was six months ago.

Epic Games hasn't made a recent statement regarding a shoulder swap option in Fortnite, and that's a shame. There are so many amazing elements of the game and its mechanics, but without a shoulder swap option there'll always be deaths that feel unfair.

As of right now, if you engage an enemy with your left shoulder, and they are around a corner, you are most likely going to lose that battle. There are so many buildings in Fortnite that will put you into situations like this, and Tilted Towers is full of them. It's no fun dying to someone right in front of you that you can't even see.

Epic Games is doing a fantastic job at growing Fortnite, as it just recently released the game on mobile devices. Now that the company has the game on multiple platforms, it can start to hone in on optimizing every element of gameplay.

​In the latest Fortnite patch, Epic Games worked on some optimization with different weapons, and fixed plenty of bugs. It is clearly focused on making Fortnite the best game it can possibly be, so implementing a shoulder swap option to the game is probably a lot harder then we know, or else Epic Games would likely have provided one already.

Whether that is true or not, there is one truth we can count on: Fortnite would have the cleanest combat of any battle royale game if it had a shoulder swap option. Make it happen, Epic Games!

Photo courtesy of Epic Games