Fortnite's Political Content Encourages Violence and Allows Players to Stage a Capitol Insurrection

https://globalextremism.org/post/fortnites-political-content-encourages-violence/



Fortnite, a video game developed and released by Epic Games, reportedly has 236 million monthly active players and boasts around 650 million registered players as of 2024. According to Demandsage, around 60 percent of Fortnite players are between the ages of 18 and 24, with around 90 percent identifying as male. Over 20 percent of players reside in the United States with Russia, Brazil, Poland, and Mexico following suit. Fortnite generated $4.4 billion in revenue in 2022, making up 85 percent of Epic Games’ total revenue for the year. Fortnite is available on PC, Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, having been pulled from both Apple’s iOS App Store and the Google Play Store in August 2020 after a dispute over royalty payments. Epic allows access to Fortnite on Android devices through its own application.

Epic Games has a history of platforming problematic content and allowing hate to spread on their games. Fortnite was criticized for hosting antisemitic content and failing to moderate Holocaust denial following the release of a report by the ADL in April 2023. According to the report, “multiple users had the name ‘Holohaux,’ while others included the number 88, a white supremacist reference to ‘Heil Hitler.’” Epic Games responded by unveiling an in-game Holocaust Museum, titled “Voices of the Forgotten,” created by Luc Bernard, a French-Jewish video game creator. Unfortunately, this didn’t prevent well-known antisemites from taking advantage of the game’s popularity with young people. Neo-Nazi online influencer Nick Fuentes hosted a fundraiser in December 2023 with a $500 grand prize on Fortnite for his white nationalist conference, the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC).

User-generated content appears on Fortnite as “islands,” a collection of game modes first released in 2018 separate from Fortnite’s trademark “Battle Royale”-style. Each Island represents a different game that users can choose from the “Discover” tab when they open Fortnite, similar to how Roblox’s “experiences” function (read our reporting on Roblox’s user-generated content here). Epic has released their own islands, like the “Festival Jam Stage,” which hosts popular music artists performing at virtual concerts. Gamers can build their own islands using an in-built game designer, called Fortnite “Creative,” and the external “Unreal Editor for Fortnite” powered by Unreal, a game engine also owned by Epic. Creative mode is described by Epic Games as allowing the player to “design Fortnite games and experiences that can be published and shared with friends online… using your own rules on your own personal island.” Users can generate islands from elaborate templates, or from a “basic” island design available in the Creative Studio. The vast majority of islands are themed maps used for more classic game modes, like “Team Deathmatches,” which pits two teams against each other, “Free For Alls,” and Player vs. Player (PvP) game modes. Fortnite was used as a campaigning tool by Joe Biden in the 2020 US Presidential election with an island called “Build Back Better.” It is no longer available for players to access.


Political Gaming on Fortnite



One island flagged by GPAHE is called “Storm the Capitol,” developed by “KCG Studios.” The island’s information page features an image of three armed Fortnite characters approaching a building resembling the United States Capitol, and the “About This Island” section describes the island as only having “one goal, OCCUPY ENEMY BASE!” by “eliminat[ing] all the guards and infiltrate enemy base (sic).” Up to four players can attempt this virtual insurrection at once. Upon entering the island, in-game terrain doesn’t resemble the Capitol grounds, however the objective remains the same. The player must enter a “stronghold” by making their way past eight armed guards by either killing them or stealthily avoiding them. Players are given three weapons: a suppressed sniper rifle, an automatic shotgun, and an assault rifle. They may also take guns from guards they’ve killed. Any time the guards are alerted to any of the players’ presence, a group of “reinforcements” arrive and engage the players in a gunfight. Reinforcements will continue fighting players until they or the player are killed. The game appears to be built using Epic Games’ Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and uses the Verse Stronghold Template provided by the Epic Developer Community. KCG Studios made little to no edits to the template before rebranding it as an insurrection simulator.