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While Fortnite OG has had a consistently solid player population for months, the mode has been overshadowed by both Reload and Blitz–and so it’s only to be expected that Epic would try some new stuff to shake things up. This past weekend’s live rocket event has seemingly ushered in the first of these changes, which could be taking the island in a new direction with the mysterious red rifts. And with this latest patch, OG got a retro matchmaking mode with no skill-based matchmaking and no bots.
OG Duos just went Expert mode!
Wanna put your skills to the test? Expert mode has old school matchmaking rules where anyone and everyone could be in your lobby! Good luck 😉— Fortnite (@Fortnite) July 29, 2025
To try out this new version of OG, just select the standard OG mode (not Zero build), and click the group-size dropdown menu, where you’ll find a new option at the bottom for Duo (Expert). And don’t worry: the regular Duo mode is still available for folks who don’t want to wade into this sweatfest.
While the removal of skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) will be celebrated by some, the net effect of its removal is that people who just started playing Fortnite could be matched against pro gamers–which is the reason pro gamers often clamor to get rid of SBMM. This dynamic tends to be less thrilling for normal players, though, who have a better time when they’re not constantly being matched with players who have a much higher skill level than they do.
In this case, however, the removal of SBMM and bots is actually more of a nostalgia play, because Fortnite didn’t have either of those things during Chapter 1. So this sort of matchmaking change brings OG more in line mechanically with what it really was back in the day.
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