Since 2019, Fortnite has been attempting to build an in-game “metaverse,” which is a virtual shared space in which players can interact with each other as they do offline. Fortnite has hosted concerts, in-game events, and film screenings to allow players to have shared virtual experiences. However, Fortnite’s most recent metaverse event came off as a tone-deaf catastrophe of corporate ignorance.
Fortnite has put Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their battle royale game with their new “March Through Time” virtual exhibit in collaboration with TIME Studios. In the exhibit, Rick Sanchez, the Xenomorph, Master Chief, and other wacky pop culture characters can get educated on the Civil Rights Movement, all while dancing and emoting around DC to the tune of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
As soon as the event launched, players immediately started making videos mocking the absolute absurdity of putting something as serious as a centuries-long struggle against oppression into a cartoon shooter game. The utter ridiculousness of seeing characters like the Joker dance and teabag around the National Mall while listening to excerpts from Civil Rights activists seems like something that could only happen in a satire like HBO’s Silicon Valley or South Park.
For 24 hours, there was little restriction on the skins, actions and emotes players could use throughout the National Mall. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Adding to the ludicrous commodification of MLK’s life by a third-person shooter is the “DC ‘63” spray that players unlock if they explore the entire exhibit and complete in-game quests around DC.
Fortnite also did not disable custom loading screens, which feature tips related to the battle royale. One player tweeted their screen, which featured a headshot tip telling players to “aim for the head,” while loading into the virtual Washington DC to learn about Martin Luther King.
On top of that, Epic Games had already restricted certain emotes, like throwing tomatoes. It seems like Epic Games knew that there could be problems with players having free reign in such a significant event, yet they still allowed players to treat their stay in 1963 DC like Fortnite’s previous Travis Scott concert or their Christopher Nolan film screenings.
After one day of allowing players to emote however they pleased, the only emotes allowed were the event-related actions, including a sitting and protesting emote. It still felt like a sick commodification of protests and the Civil Rights Movement to many players on Twitter.
The idea of a virtual exhibit within a game is, of course, not a bad idea. Other games like Assassin’s Creed and Minecraft have managed to include educational sections of their games without appearing tone-deaf and disrespectful to the concepts or stories they are explaining. Epic Games could have designed a virtual exhibit outside of Fortnite that focused more on the historical aspect of the movement like many museums already do.
An important historical exhibit was likely to fail in a game like Fortnite because the primary objective of the game is to commit manslaughter better than everyone else. Entertainment companies teaching younger audiences is a great idea, but Fortnite may not the proper platform to teach children about such a complex and painful era in American history.