Video Of Odd Behavior In Fortnite Match Leads To Accusations That Pro Was Cheating

Earlier this week, Fortnite pro Damion “XXiF” Cook was accused of colluding with other players during a World Cup open qualifier match in which he took second place, earning $4,000 in prize money and a spot in the eventual finals this summer in New York. In a statement, XXiF denied any wrongdoing, but that hasn’t stopped calls for him to be banned amid a climate in which fears about cheating are running rampant.

On April 29, another pro player by the name of HighSky shared a clip on Twitter of the beginning of a match in which XXiF drops into the same area as two other players, “Bad and Wuji” and “gestyy.” The footage shows Bad and Wuji hitting the ground near XXiF and beginning to pickaxe a chest rather than immediately pick up a nearby gun on the ground and find cover.

After XXiF makes short work of him, gestyy, who has seen the two fighting, decides to drop into the same area. Gestyy reaches for a low quality gun, then appears to fire at a wall before XXiF finishes him off as well. In the video, HighSky suggests the two players purposefully made themselves easy targets for XXiF because they lacked enough points in the rankings to have a shot at qualification themselves.

“Some really good [plays] from XXiF though on two insanely talented players that were not in the running anymore,” he said. He went on to share clips from two previous matches which appear to show Bad and Wuji and gestyy being similarly eliminated all too easily.

The clips went viral, blowing up on social media as well as the Competitive Fortnite subreddit, where many called on Epic Games to investigate and ban XXiF for appearing to team up with other players in a game that’s integrity relies on everyone fighting equally hard to be the winner.

On April 30, XXiF posted a statement on Twitter denying the charges, saying that while he was friends with Bad and Wuji, gestyy was just a random fan and none of what happened in the video was in any way planned. “I had no idea he was going to land there and have no control over where he chooses to land, but in 1 out of the 10 games I played he chose to land in the same spot as me,” XXiF wrote. “I can’t speak for the second guy, as I would never land on two people fighting – it’s something I can’t comprehend or put reason/meaning to.”

Bad and Wuji also released a statement on Twitter trying to explain the bizarre encounter, chalking it up to poor decision making and a bug that prevented him from immediately picking…