Epic Games announced a brand new NA-Central server launch for Fortnite on Tuesday, with the goal of offering a more optimized experience.
The newest low latency server for the massive Fortnite title aims to optimize service that could potentially cause issues for AWS Local Zones detailed by Amazon. The post mentions, “We worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver this new server region located in Dallas, Texas, USA” in order to provide the optimized experience. Amazon has also packed a lengthy explanation for what AWS Local Zones are, and it can be seen below.
In a blog post about the new server, Epic details, “We worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver this new server region located in Dallas, Texas, USA. The NA-Central server region is using AWS Local Zones to provide a low-latency experience for players in Mexico and the Central United States, with the experience being similar to those of players in the NA-East and NA-West server regions.”
Director of the North American Games Segment at AWS, Dan Carpenter said, “Epic Games and AWS have worked together for over 10 years and continue to find new ways to leverage the full potential of the cloud,” with “With the new NA-Central server region, powered by the AWS Local Zones in Dallas, Fortnite players in the central United States and Mexico can experience the best player experience through low latency gameplay” on the new server.
The lengthy Epic Games post also mentions how the competitive scene will change due to the new server launch “starting in Chapter 4 Season 2, competitive events will no longer be hosted on the NA-East and NA-West server regions. Instead, tournaments in North America will run on the NA-Central servers,” but server allocation will remain the same during Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 1 for the meantime.
Epic Games has also announced that the prize pool for both servers will be combined in the merger, resulting in a larger total payout for players. This means that there will be fewer winners overall, but each will take home twice as much as they would have if they had competed on their own servers, making things more competitive than ever.
While it all sounds good on the surface, some content creators have voiced their concerns about the change, while others are excited about the reduced latency it will bring. It is hard to say how this will work for creators and competitive players in the long run, but Epic may have to address things if it gives select players a significant advantage.
Fans looking for more details surrounding the new Fortnite server can slide over to the announcement, and fans can also learn more about AWS Local Zones by visiting the Amazon post on the server.
