Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios released a Forza Horizon 4 update yesterday that simultaneously added a new game content and removed two dance emotes, “The Floss” and “The Carlton,” amidst lawsuits filed by the dances’ creators. As noted in a post on Polygon, The two aforementioned dances are currently at the heart of ongoing lawsuits against Fornite developer Epic Games.
“Alfonso Ribeiro, who starred as Carlton Banks in the ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, sued Epic in December of its use of “The Carlton” dance in Fortnite. Shortly after, Russell “Backpack Kid” Horning went after Epic for using the Flossing dance that he made famous.”
Forza Horizon 4 has many emotes and dance moves that players can unlock for their game avatars. In addition to The Carlton and The Floss, there are a number of other popular dance moves to choose from; including Drake’s “Hotline Bling” dance and a Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk. You can view all the Forza Horizon 4 dance moves offered in this YOISYgaming YouTube video.
Epic Games is not the only game developer under attack for using dances not endorsed by the dance creators. Take-Two Interactive (parent company of 2K games), the game developer behind the NBA 2K series basketball sim, is also being sued by Ribeiro and rapper 2 Milly for use of similar emotes based on their dances.
It appears that Microsoft and Playground Games pre-emptively removed the dances from Forza Horizon 4 to avoid any future litigation by either party. No word yet if other dances and emotes will need to be removed from Forza Horizon 4. Stay tuned.
