Epic Game’s explosively popular Fortnite Battle Royale mode released a new update on March 8,  with the 3.2 version. While this new update was mainly just bug fixes, it did have something players have been looking forward to for quite some time: the teams of 20 mode. This mode has five teams of 20 players, and is similar in concept to the earlier 50v50 game mode. Despite its similarities to other features of the game, it is much better executed and a lot more fun to play.

In order to understand how good teams of 20 is, one needs to understand how awful the 50v50 mode was. In theory, it was a great idea in concept with the idea that players would work together to play against a common enemy, but it simply didn’t pan out to be that way.

In the 50v50, Epic Games simply took the regular game mode, and then split the whole match into two teams, with no changes to the erradicy of the storm or amount of loot spawned. Even worse, there was no way of talking to other players on your team, meaning that players were unorganized, without weapons, and the gameplay was really slow at the beginning as it would take six whole minutes for the storm to close in at the beginning. Another issue was that it essentially became a numbers game. This essentially made the name of the game not “which team can play fortnite better” but rather “which team has more people in one spot than the other”.

Teams of 20 seemed to look at every issue and found some sort of solution for most issues. For one, players can talk to up to four other teammates during the match, which helps with the communication issue. Another feature that was fixed was that the storm closed in quicker at the beginning of the game, meaning the start went by faster and games were more action packed at the beginning. Also, because the teams are smaller and easier to track because of the markers on the map, it is easier to get a group of teammates to work together at a common goal, such as building a fort or taking out another team.

The biggest issues I experienced in this new game mode was the loot problem. While there is an increased chance of loot spawning, there still isn’t enough to go around. In the fortnite map, there are only about three to four places with enough loot to support 20 people in a team all landing at once (and one of them is tilted.) The map was not designed to handle this type of gameplay and you could certainly tell as you were playing: there were players on my team with golden rocket launchers yet they had no shield because the loot is so sparse.

Another thing is that in the game mode, some places become overcrowded. As I mentioned before there are only a few places to land in this mode, and the one game I tried landing at Tilted Towers, there must have been 40 other people there with me. That also was the only time I have ever been shot dead before my glider touched the ground. This style of gameplay is how an entire team of 20 can be decimated within the first four minutes of this game, meaning that games get more fun at the beginning, but also very hectic.

Overall the new game mode is a lot of fun to play, with it basically being an improved version of the 50v50 mode previously released. This new mode will not be around forever, which is why it is important to play it now. The next big update to Fortnite will be its introduction to iOS on March 12, which is something that has been highly anticipated for a while.