Fortnite's Apu Controversy Explained, Simpsons Season Error

The Fortnite/Simpsons collaboration is finally out in the wild, as television's most famous family make their debut in arguably the world's most famous game, bringing Springfield along with them for the ride.

It features an 80-player recreation of the beloved cartoon town, as well as a unique battle royal experience that made the game so special in the first place. That includes giant donuts raining down from the sky, clones appearing in the streets and a bunch of other recognisable moments from the series.

Unfortunately, an issue has reared its head in the early days of the month long event that has caused some controversy. Specifically, one image in Moe's Tavern appears to remove Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, when the show makes it very clear that he should be there.

The Be Sharps Need Apu

In Moe's Tavern, there are several photos on the wall depicting memorable moments involving the guys from the show. One of the most obvious is a picture of the Be Sharps, the group formed by Apu, Barney, Homer and Principal Skinner, in the now legendary Season 5 episode Homer's Barbershop Quartet.

In the Fortnite depiction of the bar, the picture is there, but the fourth member is a character with yellow skin. Though it's a little difficult to detect which, Apu is either not there or has yellow skin, which is not a great look for the game either way.

After someone pointed it out on social media, another user quickly responded by showing another picture from the same wall, in which Apu is correctly pictured as a member of the Pin Pals bowling team from the Season 7 episode Team Homer.

In better news, this was an oversight from the development team, and an alteration is on the way that should restore him to his rightful position.

They confirmed as much over on the official Fortnite Status Twitter/X page, saying, "This wasn't intentional, it’s being adjusted in our next release."

Epic Games has a pretty impressive history of rolling out updates for smaller changes such as this pretty quickly, so we should see the beloved character back where he belongs in pretty short order.

Meanwhile, if you want to jump into the game mode for yourself to see what all of the fuss is about , you won't have particularly long to do so. As this doesn't count as a full season, it's going away forever on 29 November.