Star Fortnite streamer Turner “Tfue” Tenney won’t go live on Twitch for a while. He said early on Sept. 13 that he’s taking a break from streaming and that he feels “trapped in a negative crawl space.”
Tfue refrained from commenting on how long his break will be or if there’s any specific cause to his sadness. He’s been open about his discomfort with the state of Fortnite and streaming the game, and fans know of troubles he’s been through over the past few months regarding his career both as a pro and as a streamer.
Although Tfue has yet to confirm what led him to take a break from streaming, here’s what we know about it.
Tfue is unhappy with streaming Fortnite
He’s said multiple times that Fortnite is dying and that he needs to move on to streaming other titles. Like many other streamers, Tfue felt that a lot of the changes Epic Games added to Fortnite’s season X brought more issues than solutions to the game, like introducing the menacing robot-vehicle B.R.U.T.E. and taking too long to nerf it into the ground.
Tfue also got frustrated by the increasing number of hackers and stream snipers hunting him while he was live. He said he couldn’t avoid complaining about these situations and that these situations were the reason why other streamers who used to exclusively play Fortnite also quit the game.
While Tfue ran into B.R.U.T.E. mechs and cheaters more often in casual matches, he’s on an unlucky streak in competitive Fortnite, too.
Tfue’s recent struggles in pro play
Tfue’s bad luck in the Fortnite competitive scene started this year when he sued FaZe Clan in May for offering him a reportedly abusive contract. The player said FaZe took too much money from his sponsorship deals and failed to pay him his part in those. The current situation of the lawsuit is unknown, but Tfue removed all references to FaZe from his professional profiles and FaZe stopped referring to him as a player on its Fortnite roster.
Tfue moved on and continued competing since he qualified for the Fortnite World Cup Finals in solos. But when the tournament took place in late July, he had a poor performance and placed 67th out of 100 players, with his best performance being a match in which he placed 22nd. He said the World Cup would be his last tournament as a pro and that he would retire after it, but he continued playing and pursuing good competitive results when Fortnite’s season X started with a new championship, the Fortnite Champion Series.
But now that the tournament is approaching the final days of its first stage, Tfue is facing another problem. He felt betrayed by his teammates, Dennis “Cloakzy” Lepore and Tom “72hrs” Mulligan, after he refused a $140,000 deal to stream Madden NFL 20 to practice with them for the FNCS, while the two got the same deal and accepted it. Tfue’s teammates dropped out of the competition that weekend and streamed Madden, while Tfue neither played Madden nor in the FNCS.
The trio then parted ways and Tfue tried to find another group to compete with no success. His last stream before announcing his break was playing the weekly online tournament of Solo Cash Cups.
Tfue’s return to Twitch
Tfue has yet to announce when he’ll be back on Twitch. Unless he has another source of income, he shouldn’t take long to return, though. Taking long breaks means losing lots of subscribers and money from sponsorship deals, and if he still depends on the money from these sources, he might be back soon enough.
We’ll keep this story updated with new information.
