‘Fortnite’ will drop controversial age restrictions in next update

After causing an uproar earlier this month, Fortnite will be removing the majority of its cosmetic age-gating in the next update.

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Until we have our long-term solution, cosmetic gating will be off for the majority of cosmetics, starting with the v28.00 update.

And you can use any cosmetic at our next big in-game event.

More: https://t.co/8lr8192puH

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) November 20, 2023

In a post on the official Fortnite X account (formerly Twitter), Epic Games announced cosmetic gating “will be off for the majority of cosmetics” until the studio has a “long-term solution” to the controversial feature.

The change will be rolled out with Fortnite‘s V28.00 update, which will arrive on December 3.

A blog post on the official Fortnite website provided additional context to the decision. The Fortnite team stated that they were initially “conservative in how we reviewed cosmetics,” and that they are currently in the process of “evaluating all cosmetics again”.

Cosmetic gating was activated earlier this month in order to give all islands an age rating. This led to all cosmetic items also being given age ratings, which meant certain skins and items couldn’t be used on certain islands. As noted by Forbes writer Paul Tassi, the restrictions appeared to “mainly be gun-based”, meaning skins such as Black Widow, Cable, and Lara Croft were unavailable.

In addition to turning off most cosmetic gating, Epic has also announced that players “can use any cosmetic at our next big in-game event”.

Fortnite’s next event will be taking place at the start of next month on December 2, and is being referred to as “The Big Bang”. It’s currently unclear exactly what this event will entail, but if it’s anything like events such as the Galactus event then it could be big for the battle royale.

Fortnite recently turned back time to Chapter 1, with the original island making a return for the current update. It’s unclear if the original island will be sticking around after the next big event, or if it will be removed.

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