Why Didn’t Fortnite’s Chaos Physics System Change Anything?

Fortnite

Epic

Yesterday, players were treated to a new Fortnite patch that implemented the Chaos Physics system into the game. And yet if you weren’t told that directly, chances are you would have no idea. Playing the game, it’s hard to tell any difference in gameplay at all, leading to some measure of confusion of players. So what exactly is going on here?

The problem was a bit of misinformation and misunderstanding.

First, despite being described some places as the Chaos Physics Engine, really, this is just Unreal Engine’s Chaos Physics System, which does not replace the entire engine of Fortnite with something else, it just governs a portion of it. And you actually can see how some of the physics come into play when it comes to things like capes or cloaks on skins in the game. The new engine has changed how those move and flow in some ways (albeit not without some remaining glitches):

It was not, what people assumed, like this:

The problem is that everyone thought that this was going to be some major, hugely noticeable change. Epic brought up the implementation of the Chaos Physics system when they were talking about yet another Chapter 2 Season 1 ending delay, and seemed to imply this season has gone on for four months in part because of this complicated integration. And yet this is one of those “video game things” where something can be an absolutely tremendous amount of work behind the scenes, and yet on the front end, you can barely see what was done.

Epic said explicitly that the goal (for now) was to make Fortnite feel as much like Fortnite as possible despite this big, behind-the-scenes change. So now when people are complaining about there being no difference, they’re pointing to that statement.

I guess they can say “we told you not to expect huge changes,” and yet if you were trying to look up what Chaos Physics was in the Unreal Engine, you would see videos like this, full of crumbling stone and other structures.

So, I can see how some fans could interpret “still feel like Fortnite” as gameplay being the same, yet destruction changing where surfaces no longer simply pop out of existence but crumble in ways based on their material and shape. But none of that has changed at all. At least not yet.

The “right now” is key there. What is likely happening is that Epic is planting the seeds for larger potential changes down the line. That could be as soon as next season, and we could see the “full power” of Chaos Physics changes when season 2 launches with the rumored destruction of Steamy Stacks or the dam, or it could be something for further in the future. The point is that this is a first step and this is unlikely to be the full extent of the changes. Epic did not do all this work so capes look slightly better when you dance, I can tell you that.

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion. I do think that this update was overhyped (possibly by players, streamers and journalists combined) but also not fully explained all that well by Epic either. I would expect more Chaos-based stuff in the future, as this feels like only the beginning.

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