Epic Games is suing another Fortnite Chapter 2 tester for allegedly leaking information about the game. Last month, the company sued tester Ronald Sykes for allegedly leaking the new map design, which violated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he had signed for the company ahead of time. The second tester under fire, Lucas Johnston, reportedly also leaked a new map design.
According to the Canadian Press, Epic has filed claim against Johnston in Quebec Superior Court, alleging the Montreal-based Johnston is responsible for sharing “highly confidential information.” The court documents claim Johnston took a screenshot of a “new playing environment” on August 30. On September 12, the image was posted on Fortnite Competitions’ official user forum by a user named “chaad4,” just a month ahead of Fortnite Chapter 2’s October release. This user had three friends in common with user “FloocasJ,” whose email matched Johnston’s. Because of this, Johnston was fired from his job at Keywords Studios, a company that provides user experience testing to game companies, the day after the leak.
An internal investigation concluded Johnston was the alleged source of the leak, as security camera footage captured him taking the screenshot in question. Though Johnston admitted to taking the screenshot and emailing it to himself, he claims he doesn’t know it ended up online. Like Ronald Sykes, Epic claims Johnston violated an NDA and is seeking unspecified damages exceeding $85,000 because the leak “deprived the claimant of the element of surprise,” tipping off the company’s strategy to its competitors and affecting its reputation.
“As the creative projects created by the claimant require a long period of time between the start of their conception and their commercialization, confidentiality is thus, throughout the process, essential in order to offer its users innovative projects at the forefront of the video game technology industry,” Epic wrote in their filing.