Epic Issuing Refunds And Then Some After Fortnite's 'New' Pet

Fortnite's Battle Pass items are supposed to remain exclusive and never be sold in the game's store. A certain pupper, however, appeared to violate that long-standing rule, sparking outrage in the Fortnite community. Now Epic Games is offering up a mea culpa... and some refunds.

The controversy centered around a new Fortnite Pet named Gunner, who — as players very quickly noticed — looked an awful lot like the Bonesy Pet made available in the Season 6 Battle Pass. After showing up on the store for a brief period, Gunner was removed, with Epic issuing an apology via Twitter.

"We should not have released the Gunner Pet and apologize for doing so," the company said. "Within the next couple of days, all purchases of Gunner will be refunded for the full amount of 1000 V-Bucks as well as an additional 200 V-Bucks and the Pet will be removed from the Locker."

We can understand some of the frustration players felt at seeing Gunner hit the store. Fortnite's Battle Pass cosmetics are tokens of pride for some, showing how far they got through the Pass in a particular season. Battle Pass tiers can also be purchased, and some might've paid a bit more than Gunner's 1000 V-Bucks to get Bonesy back in Season 6.

And Epic didn't really put a whole lot of effort into differentiating Gunner from Bonesy at all. The image above shows the two Pets side by side, and the differences are negligible. Gunner has a lighter fur color, blue eyes instead of brown, and a marking on his scarf. That's about it.

This isn't the first time Epic's pushed the boundaries by offering Battle Pass-like items in the Fortnite store, and clearly the passage of time hasn't made players any less sensitive about the issue. We expect Epic won't be making this mistake again for quite a while.