In an effort to eliminate toxicity from the battle royale, the Fortnite devs revealed a new accessibility setting that hides confrontational emotes. Instead of celebrating, the change was met with a wall of furious pushback.
Epic Games announced a new “see confrontational emotes” setting in Fortnite, allowing players to choose whether or not to see certain emotes during a match. The taunts in question are Laugh It UP, Take the L, Whipcrack, and Make It Plantain. The new setting will be located under the Social Privacy tab. Players can change their preferences to see the emotes from anyone, only from friends in a party, or never. It’s important to note that this new setting doesn’t change a player’s ability to use any Emotes.
“We want emotes to be a source of good vibes, but a few (*cough* Take the L *cough*) can sometimes feel a bit overly confrontational,” Epic Games argued. A large segment of the player base pushed back against the decision and questioned why the setting needed to be introduced.
“LMAO, we are so doomed,” 100 Thieves co-owner Courage responded. Fortnite content creator SypherPK had a different viewpoint on the matter and argued, “I never have to listen to someone “laugh it up” ever again. W” It appears that SypherPK was in the minority with his opinion, as commenters disagreed with the sentiment.
Regardless of your position on the design choice, it’s caused an uproar. Fortnite content creator CODE: ITALK echoed this, asking, “Are you serious?” Just under one hour after being posted, the Twitter post already has over 900,000 views and around 3,000 comments. It’s unclear if Epic plans to change its course of action after looking at the blowback, but this won’t be the end of discussions.
