Epic Games has muted two in-game emotes featuring music by rapper D4vd in its latest update, but the move falls short of what many players are demanding: a complete purge of his content from the battle royale.
Starting today, the "Feel It" and "Trophy Drop" emotes will play their music only to players who have manually enabled a setting for "Confrontational Emotes." The default is now silent for other users. Epic previously created this toggle to suppress toxic, spam-prone emotes that griefed other players. D4vd's tracks now join that category.
The decision comes as D4vd, the stage name of 21-year-old David Anthony Burke, faces serious criminal charges. Burke was recently charged with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, allegedly killed on or around April 23, 2025 after she threatened to expose their relationship. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, and mutilating a dead body.
Fortnite's community has pressured Epic to distance itself from the artist for months. The company stopped selling and promoting D4vd content in the shop long before today's update. But players say hiding the emotes is not enough. Three pieces of D4vd content still exist in-game: the two emotes and a music track called "What Are You Waiting For." A YouTube music video collaboration titled "Locked & Loaded," featuring D4vd's likeness alongside Fortnite characters, remains online and has drawn hundreds of negative comments demanding its deletion.
Epic acknowledged the backlash last weekend through its Fortnite Status account, saying it heard fan concerns and would implement "a bunch of changes we're rolling out over time." The muting of emotes represents the first of these rollouts. The company also allowed owners of D4vd content to request refunds.
Whether Epic will eventually remove all traces of D4vd from the game remains unclear. The current approach keeps the content available while making it less visible and audible to the general playerbase, a compromise that appears unlikely to satisfy critics who see any continued presence as unacceptable.
Author Emily Chen: "Muting content sends a message, but leaving it in the game at all suggests Epic is still hedging its bets."
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