Fortnite’s new Avatar: The Last Airbender skins are live, and fans seem to be enjoying playing as Toph, Aang, Zuko, and Katara. All of the skins coincide with an in-game Avatar event that lets players control the elements like a bender from the show. As such, it’s not too surprising Sokka, one of the series’ main characters who isn’t an element-controlling bender, didn’t make the cut. But that hasn’t stopped fans from expressing their disappointment.
Despite not being a superpowered character, Sokka is a fan-favorite. He’s great at comedic relief, has a meaningful arc they did away with in the live-action Netflix series, and is all-in-all an important piece of the show’s puzzle with a lot of love in the community. So, even if he isn’t entirely in keeping with the bender theme of the Fortnite event, it would have been nice to see him included.
To add insult to injury, Fortnite did include references to Sokka, including his sword as a usable weapon, but stopped short of actually putting him in the game.
This may only be a temporary pain point, however, as Sokka may be added as a skin down the line. Fortnite has rolled out new skins for the same property in waves, such as the Dragon Ball skins that were released with months spanning between drops. So there’s a non-zero chance Sokka shows up in a future update. But even so, his omission does sting. Give Sokka a gun, Epic.
While Sokka fans are licking their wounds, Fortnite has bigger problems right now after Epic removed the game’s rarity system, causing concerns that the game may start selling skins at what players believe to be inflated prices. Without the rarity to determine a baseline cost per cosmetic item, fans are worried there’s nothing to hold Epic to a specific pricing standard. The Avatar skins have felt like a bad omen to some players, with the skins costing 2000 V-bucks ($20) compared to cheaper but similar skins. Even the bundled versions of the Avatar skins seem off in terms of pricing when compared to other bundles like the Invincible collaboration, which includes more skins and cosmetics for less money.