The official Fortnite Twitter account posted a tweet to commemorate the reopening of the Cartmanland theme park, which is one of the locations in the game, to the public. This new amusement park was added to the game as part of the ongoing collaboration with South Park, which allowed the characters and humor of the show to feature in the battle royale. However, the announcement was soon met with an overwhelming number of complaints from players about technical issues and game balance that almost drowned the message out.
The tweet from Epic Games is coming out, isn’t it? They are all excited about the “all new Cartmanland” with a capital ‘C’ and everything, calling it “our” grand re-opening as if we are all part of the joke. And yes, the premise is hilarious – a whole theme park around the nastiest kid in Colorado, probably with some wild rides, a skin or two, and maybe even a momma bear. Along with it came a colorful and lively image of the park that bore a resemblance to something straight from South Park, but the moment you scroll down just a little bit, the vibe simply … vanishes. It’s like they invited everyone to a party and at the same time, the whole crowd just came to complain about the broken door.
The responses do not mention Cartman even once. It is the perfect case of a community using an official post as a megaphone for every single complaint they have. Player ‘Mucoid’ is the first to reply, saying, “Fix the crashes. I won’t buy any South Park items if I can’t even finish a match.” That really sets the tone. It’s the vicious one-two combo: “Your cool new thing is meaningless if the base is crumbling.” Player ‘Kate091’, meanwhile, adds, “Fix your game bro my ping is so bad before I had 20-18 now I have 50-60.” The technical complaints are incessant and very sophisticated.
Then there are the balance and design complaints that almost echo and are… very passionate. Player ‘CHEWIE_______’ is quite angry: “You can shove your entire game until you revert the SBMM changes made in December. The game isn’t remotely balanced; the majority of your player base has no chance of surviving even 5 minutes right now.” Ouch. That is more than just a frustration; it is a deep-seated feeling of being alienated from the main play area. ‘MarshallBTW’ backs this by saying that Skill-Based Matchmaking and lesser mobility make it “very hard to play with lower-skilled friends.” There is a consistent pattern here – for many loyal players, the game is less entertaining and more punishing.
And the requests! Wow, the requests. They range from the sensible (“Fortnite please bring back leave the door open emote”) to the extremely specific (“PLEASE make a Tattletail sidekick i’ll give you my soul for it”). One player is on “Day 1308” of asking for Michael Jackson. Another one is begging for Spider-Man 2099. It’s quite a chaotic wishlist that shows how much – and how scattered – the player base is. There is even a bizarre sub-argument about shotguns, with one player yelling “Only dogshit casuals use other weapons that aren’t the pump,” which is… certainly a point of view.
Some of the complaints get really spicy. Player ‘dhw1734’ raises a possible PR disaster: “You let creative maps charge vbucks but have no setting in parent controls to block it…You are about to get a lot of angry parents asking for money back.” This is not a gameplay issue; this is a potential financial liability that could become real-world, just waiting to happen. And of course, along with this are the neat but crushing critiques like ‘Magic”s through questioning “desync garbage game.” The classics cannot be defeated.
It is a remarkable sight to see such a stark contrast. On one side, Epic is advertising this beautifully polished, funny crossover event. On the other side, the community shouts for help due to lag spikes, difficult matchmaking, and missing emotes. It seems that two completely different conversations are taking place at the same time in the same room. Few players, like ‘Meowz Attack’, make an effort to lift the mood by labeling it “one of the best out-of-the-blue collabs,” but they are isolated in a vast sea of frustration.
The entire case illustrates a typical modern gaming dilemma. The developers are always trying to keep the game alive and exciting by bringing new content – collabs, maps, and modes – but the basic play loop is broken or unfair to a large segment of the audience, in which case all the new stuff is just hollow. Players are not just issuing content but are part of an ecosystem. And when that ecosystem feels hostile or broken, they will voice their concerns on platforms like PlayStation and Xbox.
