Competitive players and esports organizations have unified in a public movement against the BRUTE mech suits in Fortnite Battle Royale, enough to get the hashtag #REMOVETHEMECH trending worldwide on Twitter.
It’s been a contentious time for Fortnite players in recent weeks, to say the least, with most of their frustrations surrounding the overpowered BRUTEs that are currently dominating the popular battle royale title.
These frustrations reached a critical boiling point on August 9, when Epic Games announced that the mech suits were not only here to stay, but would also remain in the Arena, cash prize tournaments, and in other competitive modes.
Predictably, this led to a lot of the prominent members of the competitive community to express their outrage on social media, and they were surprisingly joined by top-tier esports organizations in their efforts to convince Epic to act.
Collectively, players and organizations spammed #REMOVETHEMECH on Twitter so much, that the hashtag made it high up on the most trending tweets worldwide.
While it’s not everyday that a hashtag like this makes it so high up the trending charts, it actually comes as no major surprise, considering the sheer amount of prominent Twitter accounts that were tweeting it out.
Fortnite superstars Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney, Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop, and Nick ‘NICKMERCS’ Kolcheff, who nearly have a combined four million followers on the platform, certainly played a big role in the getting this avalanche started.
— Tfue (@TTfue) August 10, 2019
I’ve played Fortnite since it was released.
The community has joined together 3 times to voice their extreme displeasure about something in the game: planes, the Infinity Sword, and the mechs.
So far the community is right each time. Hope we see mechs removed.#RemoveTheMech
— Jack “CouRage” Dunlop (@CouRageJD) August 10, 2019
Look at the camaraderie! Love it. Really hope this works. #RemoveTheMech
— Nickmercs (@NICKMERCS) August 10, 2019
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As for organizations, some of the top esports teams in the world joined in on this movement, making sure that the hashtag go as much juice as possible.
The list of orgs includes FaZe Clan, Team SoloMid, and Luminosity Gaming, all of whom hold a major presence in Fortnite esports.
— TSM (@TSM) August 9, 2019
#REMOVETHEMECH#REMOVETHEMECH#REMOVETHEMECH
— Luminosity Gaming (@Luminosity) August 9, 2019
Remove the Mech from Tournaments, please
— FaZe Clan :love_you_gesture: (@FaZeClan) August 9, 2019
Why #REMOVETHEMECH?
Since the addition of the mech suits at the start of Season X, a large majority of the player-base has called on Epic Games to either remove the vehicle, or nerf it to the point where they are no longer a game-changer.
Equipped with 1,000 health points, a shotgun that deals 50 damage, a missile launcher that can fire 10 missiles at once, and an overshield that protects the user, these BRUTES usually mean certain death when they come against anyone, even the best players in the world.
Unfortunately, as far as nerfing them go, Epic have decided the best they could do is add a laser that provides both a visual and auditory warning to players when they are getting targeted by the rocket launcher, which doesn’t seem like it will help all that much.
However, with #REMOVETHEMECH no taking center-stage on social media, the ball is now in Epic’s court, and they have a big decision on their hands.
