Epic responds to reports Fortnite has removed police cars in Season 3

The decision to remove all instances of police cars from Fortnite in Chapter 2 Season 3 was not a “political statement,” battle royale developers Epic Games have said. The response comes after fans noticed environmental patrol cars had been hooked from the title following a June 17 update.

Fortnite Season 3 is here. With it came some of the biggest changes in the battle royale since Chapter 2 began. Water flooded the map, and players got access to a number of new vehicles, including sharks, cars, and trucks.

One vehicle has been reported missing since the June 17 update, however. Fans have noticed police cars may have been removed from Fortnite’s flagship battle royale. They have also been removed from the ‘Creative’ hub too.

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Fortnite has always had a host of environmental elements across the map. These include trucks, cars, ice cream vans, and police cars. Since Season 3 hit live servers, the now-flooded battle royale island is missing the latter though, Kotaku pointed out on Sunday evening.

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Police cars are gone, Epic told the Wall Street Journal after the reports began, but it’s not a “political statement,” they added. Instead, the devs are simply trying to be “sensitive about issues” players are dealing with at the moment.

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This isn’t the first time Epic has made Fortnite decisions based on the current protests in the US either. The battle royale developers made the decision to delay Season 3’s launch earlier this month to allow the communities to focus on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Epic weren’t alone in that decision. Infinity Ward announced they were pushing back their own Modern Warfare season drop to allow “change to be seen and heard,” and FIFA 21’s reveal ⁠was pushed back for similar reasons.

The decision to scrap the service vehicles from the globally-popular battle royale also nips in the bud any chance for Fortnite to become bogged in controversy.

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As Reddit user ‘africkinfrick’ said in a thread dedicated to the police car removal, “people would be able to drive cars, and [players] shooting from police cars… would cause all sorts of controversy.”

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Dexerto can also confirm Fortnite’s game-wide removal of police car designs also stretches to Creative mode. Redditor ‘Ovacq’ reported police cars appear briefly when falling from the Rift, before turning to normal cars, which Dexerto has since tested and confirmed.

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Police cars may have been shunted from the popular battle royale, there’s plenty more stuff coming the other way in Fortnite Season 3. The washed-out arena is Fortnite’s most obvious change, but there’s also new guns, and reworked fire mechanics too.

There was also a big change in the game’s coding on PC as well: the contentious aim assist feature for controller players copped a huge nerf. That comes after the raft of tweaks for the notorious feature in a secret v12.61 hotfix back in May.