Epic sues Fortnite tester for “spoiling the suspense” with Leaks

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Epic is taking one of its testers to court, alleging that he leaked information about Fortnite Chapter 2 which “spoiled” the rollout for other players. The lawsuit accuses Ronald Sykes of breaking a non-disclosure agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets, and Epic says it has “sustained and will continue to sustain damages in an amount to be determined” as a result of the leaks.

According to the text of the lawsuit, obtained by Polygon, Sykes played the new Fortnite content in September and revealed a series of details on the big update in the lead-up to release, including an image of the new map. (Of course, while the leaked map was out there weeks early, many players didn’t believe it was real.)

“Sykes attempted to ‘give the game away,’” the lawsuit says, “by leaking Epic’s secrets and spoiling the suspense that Epic had been working to generate and build for months in the run up to Fortnite Chapter 2. His disclosure of Epic’s trade secrets materially breached his non-disclosure agreement with Epic to maintain those secrets in strict confidence and betrayed the trust of the people at Epic with whom he worked.”

Epic filed another lawsuit over Fortnite leaks last year, though the tester in that case filed a defence saying he didn’t mean for the information to go public.