Fortnite fans know there’s nothing like shooting a sweaty Marge Simpson with a golden gun repeatedly, only to have her turn around and one-shot you. Maybe it was latency. Perhaps the other player managed to heal themselves midway through the gun fight. But what if your death wasn’t legit at all?
Call it cope, but right now, there’s a sizable percentage of Fortnite fans who believe their battle royale misfortunes are the direct result of cheaters who are somehow bamboozling the game. On social media platforms like TikTok, you’ll find countless clips of fans showing gameplay where competitors seem to know exactly where they are, even if they are across the map. These videos are amassing thousands of views and comments that insist hackers are ruining The Simpsons season — and that Epic isn’t doing enough about it.
“Every time there’s a cheater in my lobby,” one TikTok complains. “How in the all things holy did they know exactly where I was?” another TikTok asks, “This is getting ridiculous.” The suspicions are visible across social media, with sites like Reddit seemingly getting threads on the topic of cheaters nearly every day. “Never seen cheating become this bad in a game before,” one recent thread declares.
In a statement to Polygon, an Epic Games spokesperson asserted that player conceptions around cheating are incorrect.
“Over the past few months there has not been an uptick,” the spokesperson says. “We take action against cheaters and other rule breakers on our platform, and we continually develop new ways to detect and combat cheating. Also, we regularly investigate in-game reports and cheating accusations posted on social media.”
If anything, internal Epic Games data suggests that cheating as a whole has gone down during The Simpsons event compared to previous seasons.
So, why do people believe otherwise? There are a few different things going on, all of which are coalescing into a ball of frustration for players. The Fortnite version of Springfield, for example, exists on a smaller island than the game normally does. There are only 80 players in a lobby this season, not as much as the usual 100, but it is difficult to land anywhere without finding another player quickly. Typically, it’s not abnormal to load into a Fortnite match and, depending on where you go, spend most of the game never really encountering anyone until the final storm circles.
The Simpsons season also has an undeniable mainstream appeal. Epic says that the event has drawn more players than Fortnite has had in nearly a year, at one point reaching a high of 2.6 million concurrents. Some of these are new or lapsed players who are still finding their bearings, and they’re going up against experienced players with frightening kill/death ratios. Some fans may also not be aware that Fortnite‘s crossplay means that matches can have console players pitted against PC players. Hence, why The Simpsons event is often referred to as one of Fortnite‘s sweatiest periods ever. For players who just want to check out The Simpsons couch, every moment on Fortnite is a literal fight for their life.
Another thing that is coloring perceptions is misinformation. More casual players are learning that Epic Games unbanned a wave of cheaters — which is true. But the disciplinary U-turn happened back in April 2025, not recently.
“Earlier this year, we updated our enforcement guidelines: a first cheating offense carries a one-year ban and a second offense results in a lifetime ban,” a spokesperson says.
At the time, Epic explained that it wanted to give players who made a mistake a second chance. The only exceptions would be players who used cheats in tournaments, or players who sold cheats — the former would be barred from future competitions, and the latter would still get a lifetime ban.
Internal data suggests that players who have been reinstated after a one-year ban by and large do not become repeat offenders. One high profile ban saw a YouTuber with the handle FaZe Jarvis banned from Fortnite after uploading a video showing off tech that allowed him to have perfect aim during matches. The ban held effect for six years, during which Jarvis could not continue playing a game that had, at that point, been his primary source of income. Fellow content creators in 2019 felt that the repercussions were severe for a 17-year-old who had made a mistake. Jarvis could not play Fortnite again until he was 24 years old. So far, he’s kept on the straight and narrow.
“I am more than one bad choice,” Jarvis said in the video announcing his return to the battle royale. “All I’m asking for is a fair shot to show the world that I’ve really changed.”
To be sure, cheating does happen in Fortnite — as it does it most major shooting games. Some cheaters are brazen enough that they upload footage of themselves bypassing the rules on websites like TikTok, and cheat sellers still hawk their wares to players willing to pay. Some players aren’t just rationalizing things in their head, either. Earlier this month, Fortnite saw a glitch where players who were downed on The Simpsons couch and then revived by a teammate would then proceed to become immortal. This trick was abused by players, but Epic Games shut it down quickly.
In some cases, when players upload footage of questionable Fortnite gameplay, what they’re sharing is actually cheating. But the footage might be older, and the hacker involved has already undergone disciplinary action — which is not something other players would be able to see in their matches, unless they’ve submitted a successful report to Epic Games.
Then there’s game balance, which tends to be wonky near the start of any new season as Epic Games introduces new weapons, like Moe’s Five Gun. Krusty’s Blaster, for example, was at one point capable of lodging a balloon on players even on solid surfaces. Epic has continued tuning balance through constant updates, but until it finds the sweet spot, players might be killed in ways that feel unfair.
Finally, cheaters and hackers are likely at the forefront of everyone’s minds due to Epic Games’ recent marketing strategy, where the company has turned its punishment of cheaters into a spectacle. Hackers have been forced to apologize on social media, sued for using and making cheats and, in one case, faced legal action after using bots to inflate player counts on Fortnite maps in order to get paid by Epic Games. Outliers occur: incredibly, one cheater back in 2019 continued to break the rules even after getting slapped with a lawsuit by Epic Games.
But if you’re feeling frustrated about being the first one to die after touching ground in Springfield, that’s fair — just know that it’s probably not because some aimbot decided it was your unlucky day.
