Nobody likes spoil. In particular Epic Games, which last Friday initiated legal proceedings against Ronald Sykes, a tester of the Apollo map who reportedly revealed Chapter 2 secrets without having the right to do so in September. The publisher estimates that Ronald Sykes would have ruined all or part of the suspense on which the company worked for months for the release of Fortnite Chapter 2.
The previous season of the Battle Royale had ended in an unprecedented event — followed live by more than 6 million people on Twitch and YouTube — which then gave way to a 36 hours-long blackout during which players could only see a black hole on their screen.
A masterstroke of communication and teasing, which generated anxiety, tension but also and above all a formidable expectation for what would happen next.
Was it a total success? Not entirely according to Epic, which feels aggrieved by the very large amount of leaks about Apollo, the new map, which appeared at the end of the "black hole". The publisher is suing one of his former testers who, although he had undertaken by contract not to disclose any data on the version of the game he was testing, disclosed secret information by the end of September.
Sykes is said to have initially tweeted that in Fortnite Chapter 2 players would be able to swim. He would have continued to publish confidential information, including an image of the game's new map: Apollo Island.
For this breach of contract, Epic is claiming damages whose amounts are still unknown.