Ana Diaz
(she/her) is a culture writer at Polygon, covering internet culture, fandom, and video games. Her work has previously appeared at NPR, Wired, and The Verge.
Fortnite bullies are about to get their biggest nerf yet.
Developer Epic Games is giving Fortnite players more control over which emotes they see. A new update released on Tuesday allows players to mute a short list of animations that the developers said can be used by players in “confrontational” ways — and will mute their appearance to random players by default. Players can now choose whether or not they see the following emotes in game: Laugh It Up, Take the L, Whipcrack, and Make It Plantain.
The short list contains some of Fortnite’s more aggressive victory celebrations. As its name implies, the “Whipcrack” emote snaps a whip at another player; “Laugh It Up” makes a character heave with donkey-like brays of laughter. Now, players who choose to mute those emotes will see a player stand still with no sound.
In Fortnite, players “knock” an enemy before killing them, sending them crawling and rendering them vulnerable to antics or taunts. Sometimes, this can result in funny moments shared between friends, but it can also enable aggressive behavior where players spam these emotes at a stranger. Now, these new settings will help players control what they see while playing.
A Fortnite blog described how to use the new feature. To change which emotes show while playing, players can go to the “Social Privacy” section of the settings menu and edit the “See Confrontational Emotes” setting. According to the blog post, the game’s default setting will mute these emotes for strangers, but not for friends. So if you want to turn them off entirely, or if you want see them again, that’s how you can go change your settings.
Source: Polygon
