AI Darth Vader has been out in Fortnite for roughly an hour, and already people have managed to get the Dark Lord of the Sith to swear.
Fortnite’s new AI buddy has a death grip on all manner of cool and strange features, including the ability to serenade you, join and leave squads at will, respond intelligently to the player, issue cued and impromptu dialogue, summarize gameplay events, and warn the player if something’s about to go down.
Within an hour of the feature going live, however, Fortnite players have popped up all over social media sharing reports and videos of Vader being manipulated into saying the kind of things very much associated with the Dark Side.
“What freaking f*cking food is that, Darth Vader?” streamer LoserFruit asked Vader when he joined the team. After echoing the statement, Vader added: “Such vulgarity does not become you […] You enquire about sustenance, and yet speak like a common thug.”
Perhaps inevitably, within 30 minutes of AI Darth Vader going rogue, Epic Games was forced to push out a hotfix, telling Kotaku: “We pushed a hot fix within 30 minutes of this happening in-game, so this shouldn’t happen again.”
Darth Vader is, of course, voiced by the inimitable James Earl Jones, who died in September 2024 at the age of 93. This AI version of his voice, powered by Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs’ Flash v2.5, is used entirely with Jones’ family permissions.
In a statement, the family said: “James Earl felt that the voice of Darth Vader was inseparable from the story of Star Wars, and he always wanted fans of all ages to continue to experience it. We hope that this collaboration with Fortnite will allow both longtime fans of Darth Vader and newer generations to share in the enjoyment of this iconic character.”
While it’s certainly amusing to watch players force Darth Vader into uttering curse words — and then be roundly chastized for it — there are also more troubling reports that allege Vader has been manipulated into saying racial and phobic slurs.
“With all due respect to James Earl Jones, even with his full permission for these methods to be allowed, he did not deserve this sort of legacy,” said one player on the subreddit.
“His voice was one that shaped many of us, and now we have an AI imitating his likeness. A mere vessel without a soul. Someone like Matt Sloan (voice of Darth Vader in various video games and shows) carries more sentiment to this role than an AI ever could. Not to mention that Generative-AI is quite harmful to the environment.
“As long as we don’t have a way of finding renewable energy or a way to minimize harming our future generations, I can’t see any ‘fun’ behind this,” they added. “Sure, Darth may comment on sweaty players or comment on his hatred for sand, but is that worth [it] in [the] long-term? Is this small addition really needed to enhance our experience in the bigger sacrifice of polluting our world?”
“Nothing in this world is certain, except death, taxes, and the internet making AI racist,” added another, while one simply said: “Leave it to the internet to take a cool thing and ruin it.”
This is probably a timely opportunity to remind parents that players under 13 or their country’s age of digital consent, whichever is higher, will need their parent or guardian’s permission to talk with Darth Vader. You can approve or deny Darth’s shenanigans by heading to Epic Games’ parental controls and selecting “allow voice and written communication with AI Features.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
