Fortnite Disables Emote Ahead of Ariana Grande Concert

Today is the last day for the Ariana Grande concert that is taking place in Fortnite, with the final showing to take place at 6pm ET / 3pm PT / 11pm BST. Many players have no doubt already taken part in the festivities, completing all the unique Rift Tour quests, and acquiring the Ariana Grande skin. However, some may have noticed that a certain emote is no longer available in the game: the Bear Hug.

The Bear Hug is a fairly inoffensive emote since all it does is allow two players to hug each other. And yet, as of a couple of days ago before the Rift Tour kicked off, the emote has been completely removed from Fortnite. According to the Fortnite Status Twitter account, the removal is only temporary and Epic Games intends to add it back in and will even be offering a tokenless refund to anyone who purchased it at some point next week.

As for why Epic removed such a harmless emote, it's unsurprisingly due to a bug, something Fortnite is no stranger to. Epic itself doesn't specify exactly what the issue is but before its removal, players themselves discovered what the problem was. As demonstrated in a tweet by DatOneJackalope, some players appeared to have figured out a way to trigger the emote with one character crouching while another remains standing up, resulting in an image that could be perceived as being NSFW.

While there's no sexual act, the image alone of having someone's face being that close to another's crotch was enough to force Epic to remove the emote for the time being. Not only do children play Fortnite, it's likely that Epic could've caught heat from Ariana Grande and/or other celebrities that cameo in the game, such as LeBron James, if players could freely place them in NSFW scenarios.

Epic is by no means the first company to edit out potentially NSFW content from its games either. Back when Steve from Minecraft was added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, one of his victory screens depicted him holding a slab of meat. But because of where he was holding it, it was widely perceived to be something else and soon prompted Nintendo to issue a patch that altered the victory screen, removing the meat entirely.

When exactly the emote will be added back in is impossible to say at this point. But while some may be mildly annoyed by its removal, especially if they paid for it, fans do have more new content to look forward to in the meantime. It hasn't been officially confirmed yet, but recent leaks point to the next major crossover being with indie hit Among Us.