Fortnite's Controversial Shock Hammer Removed Due To Community Backlash

Fortnite players haven't been shy voicing their opinions about the game's new Shock Hammer weapon, which was added in Chapter 4. Following a large influx of player complaints, developer Epic Games has removed the weapon from the game.

While the above tweet says that the weapon is "temporarily disabled due to an issue," it's unclear when it will be back. Though some players have expressed frustration over the weapon more generally, the discovery of an exploit that allows players to bounce around the map (especially around water) has led to an onslaught of unfortunate viral clips and calls for Epic to vault the weapon.

Players have speculated that Epic took longer to remove the weapon from the game than it otherwise would have because the Hammer was required for certain weekly challenges. While it's unclear if that's the case, it is certainly true that Epic has removed glitches from the game faster than this. Players have also complained about other weapons in recent weeks, including the My Hero Academia tie-in item Deku Smash, which was removed from Fortnite for unknown reasons. However, the Guardian Shield was added to the loot pool, so go look around for it.