‘Fortnite’ Will Restore ‘Peacemaker’ Emote After Confirming No Connections to Nazi Earth Storyline

This past weekend, after the latest episode of Peacemaker lifted the lid on a long-simmering twist—that much of the second season had taken place in a riff on DC Comics’ Earth X, a parallel reality where Nazi Germany extended and ultimately won World War II—Epic Games and its perennial crossover platform Fortnite found itself in hot water when a recently released emote to tie in with the show’s return became central to a theory in confirming the Nazi-connected link.

Mostly, that audiences believed that one of the ways they could guess the Earth X twist ahead of its reveal in season 2’s sixth episode, “Ignorance Is Chris,” was because the season’s new opening dance number begins with John Cena’s titular vigilante performing a dance move that seemingly shaped his arms into the form of a swastika. The exact dance moves that Epic had, just a couple of weeks prior, added to the game alongside a Peacemaker skin as the “Peaceful Hips” dance emote.

After the release of last week’s episode and the dance move theory going viral, Epic moved to disable the “Peaceful Hips” dance, telling players over the weekend that it would eventually either restore the emote (or recompense players for the virtual currency spent to purchase it should the emote remain disabled permanently) after an internal discussion with Warner Bros. to see if Epic had unintentionally added Nazi imagery to one of the most popular video games on the planet.

We’ve worked closely with our partners at Warner Bros. Games to confirm there were no creative intentions to connect the Peaceful Hips Emote and the current Peacemaker storyline. To avoid any confusion, we’re modifying the Emote choreography in next week’s update. If they prefer,…

— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) October 1, 2025

Good news, then: this afternoon Epic announced on social media that Warner Bros. had not intended the dance moves to be perceived as a hint to the swastika and Peacemaker‘s Earth X reveal, and the emote will be restored soon. “We’ve worked closely with our partners at Warner Bros. Games to confirm there were no creative intentions to connect the Peaceful Hips Emote and the current Peacemaker storyline,” Epic’s statement reads in part. The emote will be restored to functionality in Fortnite in an update next week, but it won’t return in its original form. Epic will modify the emote choreography to “avoid any confusion” between the dance and the seeming-swastika imagery, as well as offer players refunds for the emote if they so desire.

Epic has had to disable and modify player emotes in Fortnite many times in the past, either for incorrect functionality or to avoid them being misconstrued in various manners. But the incident with Peacemaker is one of the rare times that Epic thought it had had the wool pulled over its eyes, especially in order to potentially maintain secrets for an airing TV show’s current plotline. Especially when said secret was “oops, all Nazis.”

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.