Though we still have a few weeks until the release of Chapter 2, Season 2 of Fortnite battle royale, Epic Games is already making some major changes for the game. The changes are related to the official rules that govern the competitive side of the game.

Fortnite Collusion Rules Update by Epic Games

The first major update for the competitive rules includes Fortnite collusion and signaling problems. Some significant issues popped up quite often over the last few months in the battle royale game.

A recent blog post on the official Epic Games website addressed the issues and updated rules. The developer began the blog post by looking back at 2019 and the various changes and rules enforced during the competitive season.

Throughout the past year, Epic Games worked with its competitive and anti-cheat teams to remove players from tournaments and the Arena playlist who broke the competitive code of conduct or any other official rules that pertain to the battle royale competitions.

Moving past that and into 2020, the developer continues to monitor competitive play in all officially supported regions around the world. They are prepared to take action against all unfair play, if necessary. This is a welcome and solid move from the team that includes changes to the rules.

Epic Games made it clearer what collusion and signaling entail in Fortnite and the punishment for players who try it. The rule itself is a simple one. Players may not work together to deceive or otherwise cheat other players during any match.

The action, known as Fortnite collusion, will be strictly enforced during the competitive season of 2020. In addition to making the rule clearer, Epic Games noted some possible examples of collusion or signaling that could lead to some swift punishment.

Examples of Fortnite Collusion and Signaling

One of these is teaming up together unfairly. It involves two or more players suddenly working together during a match while being on opposing teams that should be competing against one another. It is an unfair advantage that won’t be allowed whatsoever.

Another example of the collusion rule is preventing players from doing planned movements. This is where there is an agreement between two or more players opposing one another to land at a specific location or to move through the map in a planned way before the match begins.

The third example is the communication aspect of Fortnite collusion. This includes sending or receiving signals (both verbal and non-verbal) to communicate with opposing players in a match.

Lastly, item dumping is the final example. It means an opposing player intentionally drops some items for the other player to collect even though they are on different sides of the match.

Epic Games noted last year, players sent and received signals during official competitions for the game to the point where many players confused about the ruling regarding collusion.

Starting now and moving forward in 2020, Epic Games is acting against any in-game communication between opponents via signaling in official tournament matches. This includes but is not limited to players swinging their pickaxes to communicate with another player or emoting.

It also includes tossing up toy items to show that you want to communicate with them or jumping around. Any cases of signaling in this manner results in a teaming/collusion penalty given to the players involved. This doesn’t take away from the pacifism-style gameplay some players use.

Players can still be pacifists and run away from fights or not engage with opposing players so long as they don’t try to communicate in one of these ways or team up together. If any signaling is involved during official matches, Epic Games will review the gameplay and take appropriate action.

Repeat offenders of colluding in matches may be subject to increased penalties for multiple actions. If you are a pro or competitive player who likes to collect items, build, and survive until the end, you can still do that.

What to Do About Reporting Players

We do, however, warn and recommend you don’t engage with other players through even simple gestures like dancing and the like. Though these are considered funny most of the time and can be harmless, some players do use this to team up together, share items, and help each other win.

Several cases of this happened in 2019 in which players got subsequently punished for it. We don’t want to see this happen to any innocent players who are having fun, so keep any communication like that in the standard non-competitive modes like Team Rumble and the like.

Also, Epic Games encourages players to report any actions they see that seem to be collusion or teaming to the player support team. You can also report in-game other players who you believe are cheating, exploiting the game, harassing other players, and so on.