Anyone who has played a competitive online game knows that the community can sometimes be a bit toxic. Epic Games is taking yet another step in protecting players by giving them the ability to block emotes deemed "confrontational."
With this week's v29.30 update, a new "See Confrontational Emotes” setting will be added, giving players the ability to choose not to see certain Emotes that are "sometimes used in confrontational ways."
Epic notes, "Players who choose this will see a player using the Emote standing still, with no Emote sound."
The new setting will only apply to four Emotes that are currently in the game:
- Laugh It Up
- Take the L
- Whipcrack
- Make It Plantain
Anyone who has played Fortnite knows these emotes are used to taunt other players. They are basically the Fortnite equivalent of what teabagging used to be in Halo and Call of Duty.
Some may argue that today's online gaming community has grown soft, but it's refreshing to see Epic Games continue to cater to all crowds. The fact of the matter is these can be frustrating if someone does it against you, especially after a heated battle, and eliminating this sort of thing can make for an overall more pleasant gaming experience.
This new setting will be found under "Social Privacy" and will default to only show these Emotes from friends in your party. You can opt to change this setting at any time so that you can see these Emotes from any player or not at all. Epic also notes that this setting "does not change a player's ability to use any Emotes."
Emotes are a big moneymaker in Fortnite, often sold in the Item Shop or available as a reward in the Battle Pass. While there are a wide variety of emotes, many of which are not confrontational, the ones mentioned above are some of the more popular ones.
Epic's tweet was actually met with a bit of backlash from the Fortnite community on social media with some wondering "isn't that the whole point of some of those emotes?"
The new emote setting will go live with the v29.30 update on Tuesday, April 23. Do you like this new setting?