Fortnite Pulls An Item From the Shop and Offers Refunds to Buyers

Last night, Fortnite mistakenly sold a music track through their item shop. Now, that item has been pulled, with Epic offering refunds and apologies to affected gamers.

The item in question was a music track called The Wild. Previously, the item was only available as a tier-70 reward for players with the Chapter 2 Season 6 battle pass.

What’s the big deal about this item? Fortnite has never before sold a battle pass reward as a separate purchase in the item shop. In fact, Epic had previously promised to never sell such an item because doing so would be unfair to the players who have actually earned the item through gameplay.

The Wild Lobby Track was made available in the Item Shop today despite also being a Battle Pass Reward. We realize that this was a mistake and will be removing it from the Item Shop. pic.twitter.com/aZi94OKdTA
— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) March 23, 2021

While the track was quickly removed following player complaints, it is clear that adding that track to the store wasn’t just a simple mistake. The developer actually hyped the sale of the item through multiple (now deleted) social media posts, complete with animated track samples.

So what happened here? Some players have speculated that this track was originally planned as an item shop item before being added as a battle pass reward. However, the social media posts might have been scheduled ahead of time before that decision was made.

This is only speculation on the part of gamers, though. And Epic has not commented on how the mistake happened. They have, however, pledged to refund money to any gamers who bought the track while it was on sale.