An exploit that caused Fortnite‘s new Darth Vader AI to swear at players has already been fixed, so if you were hoping to hear some fruity language from everyone’s favorite Sith Lord, you might be disappointed.
Earlier today, a clip showing Australian streamer Loserfruit prompting the game’s new AI-powered Darth Vader to swear at her (as preserved here by user Cordial) went viral. In the clip, the Vader AI can be heard clearly dropping an F-bomb. He might be evil, but that’s probably not what Epic intended.
Following the clip’s proliferation, Epic responded to Cordial in order to confirm that the issue “shouldn’t happen again”, since a hotfix has been pushed. If you ask me, it would have been infinitely funnier if they’d kept the swearing in the game, but I guess we can’t have nice things anymore.
According to an official FAQ, Vader’s dialogue is generated by Google Gemini 2.0 Flash, and the audio, which is clearly based on original actor James Earl Jones’ voice, is created by the ElevenLabs Flash 2.5 model.
Vader only understands English (and not Galactic Basic, weirdly enough), and if you’re a minor, you’ll need your parent or guardian to approve voice or written communication with Vader via the parental controls section of the game.
The character can be spoken to by the first team to recruit Vader in either the standard Battle Royale mode or its Zero Build alternative, and he’s also available in the Ranked play mode, so even if you’re trying to sweat up a storm, you can still take some time to chat with Ani (spoiler alert).
The Darth Vader AI is part of Fortnite‘s latest Star Wars collaboration, which also brings the likes of Emperor Palpatine, Poe Dameron, and, er, Darth Jar Jar as skins for players to terrify their foes with.
Of course, if you’re playing Fortnite on iOS, then all of this is moot, at least for now; earlier today, Epic announced that Apple has blocked the release of the game on iOS in the US and Europe, which means it’s currently offline on the platform “worldwide”.
