Epic Games have released their v8.10 patch notes for Fortnite, and revealed the Nintendo Switch will now no longer have cross play with the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.

Back in July 2018, Nintendo and Microsoft made sure to mention in their marketing that they would allow crossplay on titles such as Fortnite and Minecraft, after it became apparent that Sony did not allow it on the PlayStation 4. Sony later started a beta for crossplay in September 2018.

Now it seems the Nintendo Switch is omitted from crossplay with other consoles in Fortnite. The patch notes state that while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are part of the same pools, the Nintendo Switch is now in the same pool as mobile players.

“We expect an on-average better per-game experience for both Mobile and Switch players.” […] “Motivating factor is unlocking optimization potential allowing us to run more playlists during more hours of the day while supporting more data center locations.”

It seems this decision was motivated by the Nintendo Switch version of the game having a 30 FPS cap. This was giving players on that system a disadvantage in fast-paced firefights beyond having less information to react to.

Digital Foundry uncovered an FPS related glitch back in January 2019. 60 FPS versions of the game had over a 5% increase in rate of fire when compared to 30 FPS versions of the game.

Epic Games did state this would be fixed in an update, but we are unsure whether removing crossplay is the solution, or a temporary fix while the glitch is solved.

In other news, the patch notes also detail that the game has “Reduced infinite dab duration from 12 hours to 11 hours in the front end […] Just kidding, Increased Infinite dab duration from 12 hours to 13 hours in the front end.”

Fortnite is currently available for Windows PC, Mac, Android, and iOS (via the Epic Games Store); as well as Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.