Fortnite is a game about receding into the woods and trying to avoid humanity for the entirety of your natural lifespan. Oh wait, no, that’s just what I’m planning to do after today’s events. But Fortnite is a game where staying hidden and getting the drop on other players can be a huge advantage. You can imagine, then, how a permanent invisibility glitch might make things a teensy bit wonky.
As part of the big season six kick off, Epic added items called “Shadow Stones” to the game. They appear near corrupted areas of the map and put you in a mode called “Shadow Form” that grants you a spooky dash ability and renders you temporarily invisible if you’re standing still. You can’t attack while you’re in this state, because that would be some serious bullshit. That in mind, permanent invisibility is more serious bullshit.
The glitch appeared to occur any time somebody got downed shortly after grabbing a Shadow Stone. If revived by a teammate, players would remain fully invisible—even while moving—and could use all their items and abilities. Here are a couple videos of the glitch in action:
They could fire guns, build, and even access their shadow form abilities. Other players barely stood a chance.
Players also discovered other Shadow Stone glitches, like one that allowed them to go inside previously inaccessible trucks.
Basically, it wasn’t a great situation. A few hours after these glitches reared their invisible heads, Epic pulled an Epic and announced that Shadow Stones are out of the game for now.
“Due to an issue with Shadow Stones, we’re disabling them until we have a fix,” the developer said on Twitter.
Fortnite’s sixth season has been sailing along about as smoothly as a life raft full of bowling balls, with breast physics somehow ending up on the Calamity cowgirl skin in addition to the Shadow Stone issue. In a brief statement, Epic declared the physics “unintended” and “embarrassing” and said it’s working on a fix for that as well. So it really just seems like everybody’s having a great time today, huh?
Update - 2:00 PM, 9/28/18: Shadow Stones are now back in Fortnite. However, the Port-A-Fortress is out due to issues with “degraded performance.”