Following the tragic deaths at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, Fortnite has decided to remove its ‘Out West’ dance emote.
After Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston went horribly awry, Fortnite have reacted by removing Scott’s ‘Out West’ dance emote. Before the latest update was able to be released, Epic Games temporarily disabled the “Daily” section of the game’s Item Shop.
Although Fortnite confirmed the “Daily” section’s momentary deactivation was intentional via Twitter, they failed to mention why. Likewise, there was no mention of Travis Scott or the associated emote.
The horrific incident at Scott’s music festival occurred on November 5th, in Houston’s NRG Park. CNN reported that a “densely packed crowd surged toward a stage” and subsequently crushed one another. It resulted in the deaths of at least eight people and “scores of others were injured in the chaos”.
Those who lost their lives aged from as young as 14 to 27. One of the victim’s ages is yet to be identified.
Scott has since commented through social media, saying how “absolutely devastated” he is by what happened. He went on saying he was “actually working right now to identify the families so [he] can help assist them through this tough time”.
Which leaves us wondering why Fortnite hasn’t addressed the situation themselves. Scott starred in a concert for the game back in April of 2020, complete with a digital avatar who danced around the Bottle Royale map and transported players into space.
It was the beginning of bigger marketing efforts and other public events for the franchise, with as many as 12.3 million watchers at the time. Two skins were released based on Scott’s Astro Jack avatar persona, plus extra cosmetics and the ‘Out West’ emote itself.
It’s known that the "Daily" section of the Item Shop has been disabled. This is intentional and the "Daily" section will return with the next Item Shop refresh. pic.twitter.com/rc6Kqh7qoW
— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) November 8, 2021
Whilst the game hasn’t removed all of this content, it did bring the “Daily” of the Item Shop down for the emote; a section that tends to rotate through its available skins and cosmetics regularly.
Whether Fortnite will choose to disable all of Scott’s related content in future is still unknown.
