The highly-anticipated LEGO Fortnite’s extensive creation tools quickly fell into the wrong hands as players took less than a day to recreate the events of 9/11 in the game—a common and unfortunate occurrence in sandbox titles.
Fortnite and LEGO’s collaboration offers players new gameplay and world-building opportunities across an expansive 95-square-kilometer map. Placing, connecting, and breaking bricks in traditional LEGO style means anything is possible, including recreating real-world events. Edgy players quickly took advantage of the tool to recreate a dark event of history.
This phenomenon is far from unknown to game developers. One developer took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain this, saying “Every single time I’ve advocated for releasing tools like this, we have to hold a discussion about this scenario.”
Similarly, Steam has a searchable fan-created page dedicated to games where you can recreate 9/11. Featured games and reviews include GTA V, DayZ, Halo, and even the supposedly child-friendly game LEGO Worlds.
Recreations of terrorist attacks are only the start when it comes to game developers’ concerns. Famously, game developers have an official measure for how long it takes players to create phallic imagery after a game’s launch, routinely referred to as TTP, or “Time To Penis.”
In May 2023, Why Now Gaming reported on a player’s use of construction mechanics in Zelda Tears of the Kingdom to create, set on fire, and destroy phallic objects in what Nintendo calls a family-friendly game. Taking game leaks and betas into account, it is reasonable to assume that some games even have a negative TTP.
Ultimately, no game is safe from horrible historic recreations, perfectly sculpted dick pics, or other crude jokes, no matter how family-friendly the developers intend it to be. It’s just that the players of LEGO Fortnite were particularly fast to cross the edgy line.
