Fortnite developer Epic Games has backtracked after accidentally bringing back a limited-time exclusive skin almost five years after its release and threatening to take it from new purchasers.
The skin in question is The Paradigm – a skin that was originally available for just three days in October 2019. At the time, it was advertised as an "exclusive" item that would only be "available for a limited time," but lo and behold, those who saw Fortnite's Item Shop refresh with new goodies overnight were in for a surprise, as The Paradigm was inexplicably back, giving players another chance to add her to their Lockers if they weren't able to before.
Alas, it wasn't long before Epic Games stepped in to shut this down, removing her from the Shop and releasing a statement to explain that the skin had been brought back "due to a bug," so it definitely wasn't intentional. To make matters worse, the developers planned to outright remove the skin from new purchasers' Lockers "within the week," refunding the V-Bucks they spent at the same time.
Due to a bug, we unintentionally brought Paradigm back into the Shop and have since removed it.Within the week we’ll be removing Paradigm from recent purchaser’s Lockers and refunding the purchase as this was a limited time exclusive Outfit during Chapter 1 Season X. pic.twitter.com/XgmBlMQyY1August 7, 2024
As you'd expect, this didn't go down well, with players calling the move "kinda wrong," and saying it's effectively "punishing new players." It also revived the everlasting debate over whether Fortnite should even have 'exclusive' items in the first place. There are loads of old Battle Pass-exclusives like Spider-Man and Geralt of Rivia that newer players simply can't own because of the way they were distributed. While not quite in the same boat, there are also cosmetics that just haven't been brought back to the Item Shop in forever, like the Kratos skin that was last seen in 2021. His existence certainly makes my personal regret of missing out on Leon Kennedy last year seem way less important.
Anyway, less than two hours later, Epic Games clearly got the message, as it announced a U-turn: "Change of plan! Bought The Paradigm tonight? You can keep her!"
Those who bought The Paradigm are now getting the best of both worlds as they'll still be refunded their V-Bucks while being able to hold onto the elusive skin. On top of that, anyone who bought her in 2019 will be given the option to refund the skin, but if they keep it, they'll eventually be given a new, exclusive variant. Clearly, the devs aren't stopping with those exclusive cosmetics any time soon, then.
All in all, this is probably the best-case scenario other than The Paradigm being outright available for everyone. There's no doubt some are going to be annoyed that they missed their brief chance to get her overnight, though.
