Summary
A new Houdini emote that’s based on Eminem’s latest song has convincedFortnitefans thatEpic’s deletion of the Rap Boy emote was all just a clever joke.
If you’ve been playing Fortnite for long enough, then you’re likely very aware thatEpic Games regularly has to remove outfits, items, pickaxes, backblings, modes and morein order to fix or update them.Just look at the Yoda Backbling from a few months ago, and you’ll know what I mean when I say that Fortnite fans are more than used to things being temporarily removed from the game.
That being said, it still came as a bit of a surprise and worry to players when thelatest update for Fortnite removed Eminem’s costly Rap Boy skin from the game. It wasn’t clear if it was an accident of some kind or if Epic had found some big issue with it that made a removal necessary, but a new emote has made it seem like it was all part of a joke.
Rap Boy Was Seemingly Removed From Fortnite For A Joke
Although it at first seemed like Rap Boy had just been deleted from Fortnite by accident, it’s looking more and more like it was an elaborate joke playing off of the lyrics of Houdini. Yesterday,the official Fortnite Twitter account shared a video of Eminem’s Rap Boy outfit performing a new Houdini emote, which seems to be a reference to the song’s music video.
For those that don’t know, one of Eminem’s most recent songs is called “Houdini”, and themusic video prominently features him dressing back up as Rap Boy for the first time in years. Considering the Rap Boy skin was just removed from Fortnite and then re-added back alongside an emote based on that music video, it seems very likely that Epic did it on purpose as a bit of cross-promotion with the music video.
The Rap Boy skin being deleted and reappearing also seems to be playing off of the Houdini lyrics, “And for my last trick, poof, just like that and I’m back, bruh”.
This also seems to be acknowledged by Epic itself in the tweet about the Houdini emote, which reads, “And for our next trick…”, and clued a lot of fans into the joke. It’s rare that Epic has as much fun as this with its Item Shop (especially since a lot of players were annoyed about Rap Boy being gone), but it’s nice to see it was all part of the plan.