Motorboats are one of the things many people have come to rely on in Season 3 of Fortnite, but they are proving to be more trouble than they're worth. Epic Games has temporarily disabled boats because of not one, but multiple game-breaking issues coming from the vehicles.
Season 3 of Fortnite saw several parts of the map being flooded, and boats became one of the most efficient ways to travel between areas. While the Fortnite water levels are receding now, boats are still an integral part of the game and the only reason Epic Games is removing them is because of the two glitches: one that grants infinite items, and another that traps and drowns the player.
One of the culprits that triggers an issue is one of the newest and most popular Points of Interest. The new Coral Castle POI is causing a major glitch. Players that ride a boat into the waterfall near Coral Castle can glitch out of the map, which does make the player impossible to target, but also slowly drowns the trapped player. This issue has been confusing tons of players just looking to explore the new POI, and Epic Games took to Twitter to announce boats were disabled just one day after Coral Castle was released.
The other major glitch leads to players being able to harvest infinite items, and endlessly fishing some of the added Floppers in Fortnite can obviously create more opportunities for players to heal themselves and win. Players could trigger the glitch by quickly switching between a chosen item and a pickaxe as they jumped into a boat, then jumping back out and discovering a million copies of that item in their inventory. This huge amount of items still takes up the same amount of space, meaning players can bypass the normal restrictions everyone else in the game has.
Now that boats are gone, Choppas are the most reliable mode of transport around the Fortnite map. It's unclear how long it will take for Epic Games to fix these game-breaking glitches. Now, more than ever, cars are one of the most anticipated features coming soon to Fortnite. While the cars release date is also up in the air, players can travel by air but not by land or by sea.
This isn't the first time Epic Games removed a vehicle from Fortnite. Although it didn't have as big a mechanical impact, Epic Games got rid of police cars in the wake of the George Floyd protests. They weren't driveable, and the reason for removal was based on real-world events rather than game-breaking glitches. Both instances show Epic Games being quick to respond to player concerns, and players can only hope that the devs fix the more game-threatening issues quickly.
Fortnite is available now on Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.