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Ironmouse's Fortnite 'Cry For Me' emote sparks AI debate: Why are her past comments resurfacing now? Sumit Roy / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Sep 19, 2026, 02:20 IST Twitch star Ironmouse is facing criticism after Fortnite revealed her "Cry For Me" emote, with some X users questioning how the collaboration fits with her earlier comments about generative AI. The VTuber has previously spoken strongly against working with AI companies and pulled out of a sponsored collaboration with Neverness to Everness after raising concerns about its use of generative AI. Fortnite, however, has publicly introduced AI-powered tools for creators and NPCs. The latest collaboration has therefore brought Ironmouse's past comments back into the discussion, while streamer Tectone has also joined the online criticism. Ironmouse's past comments on AI return after Fortnite collaboration. Ironmouse has been open about her opposition to generative AI. During a March 2026 livestream, she spoke about receiving repeated sponsorship offers from AI companies. The VTuber said she was not interested in working with them and questioned why they continued contacting her despite her position. "Oh, my god! Talking about AI, this AI company keeps ****** messaging me. This AI company keeps messaging me, asking to do, like, they keep asking to do, like, a sponsor partnership with me. You May Like And, like, I've just been ignoring them, but they keep on messaging me over and over again. And I just want to be like, '**** off, mate! Oi, mate, **** off! **** off, mate!' It's multiple AI stuff. One of them is a chatbot. The other one is an AI music thing. AI to create AI music, and it's just like mate, what the ****? Like, I'm the wrong person to talk to. Like, you ******* messaged the wrong person, bro!" Her position became a bigger topic in May when she ended her involvement with Neverness to Everness. Ironmouse said her team had been told the game would not contain generative AI. After players raised concerns about suspected AI-created assets, she said she would no longer play or promote the game. The situation later became more complicated when Hotta Studio said AI-assisted tools had been used on a small number of background and environmental assets. The developer also said those assets would be reviewed and reworked. Fortnite now has documented AI features of its own. Epic Games introduced AI-powered conversations for Fortnite creators in 2026. The company said developers could use the system to create NPCs that respond to players with unscripted dialogue. That difference is what some users focused on after Fortnite announced its collaboration with Ironmouse. X users and Tectone question Ironmouse's Fortnite deal. On September 17, 2026, X user @HYPEX shared the "Cry For Me" emote connected to Ironmouse. The post quickly drew attention online and brought her previous AI comments back into the conversation. Some users accused the VTuber of having different standards for different games. X user @Pirat_Nation questioned why Ironmouse had rejected Neverness to Everness over AI concerns while appearing excited about Fortnite. YouTuber Rev Says Desu also questioned the collaboration, writing: "Ironmouse, who will 'never support games with ai', when she's offered a paid sponsorship with a game that openly uses generative ai:" Another X user, @DejaWukong, wrote: "remember that time ironmouse said she would never support or play a game with ai. Money over morals I guess" These posts represent the criticism from individual users and do not establish why Ironmouse agreed to the Fortnite collaboration. Some online users have also pointed out that Fortnite's AI use and the Neverness to Everness controversy are not necessarily identical situations. In the NTE case, Ironmouse's dispute centered partly on what she and her team were told about AI use before the collaboration. Streamer John "Tectone" also commented on the situation. He claimed that Ironmouse would not respond to the criticism and accused her supporters of attacking people who questioned her position. "She won't address anything. She never does, because every time she has it's made her look far worse. So she'll do the age old tactic, say nothing and let her rabid ****** fanbase defend her. Not by debunking any claims, not by providing proof of misinformation. Just slandering anyone who tells the truth about mouse. Once you understand how people like this work, you'll never unsee it." As of September 18, Ironmouse had not publicly addressed the latest criticism. Meanwhile, the Fortnite collaboration continues to attract attention from both her supporters and users questioning how it fits with her earlier position on generative AI. End of Article

The Witcher 4 studio switch to Unreal Engine 5 to spend less time on technical issues, says co-ceo. Michał Nowakowski also spoke about how CD Projekt RED and Epic Games worked on Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4 together. While CD Projekt RED used its proprietary in-house game engine - the RED Engine - to develop The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, the studio has spoken quite a bit about switching to Unreal Engine 5 for the development of The Witcher 4. In a conversation on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast, the studio's co-CEO Michał Nowakowski said that this decision came down to the team wanting to focus on making games rather than solving technical issues. CD Projekt RED first started paying attention to Unreal Engine 5 around the time when Epic Games released The Matrix Awakens as a way to showcase all of the technical strides it had made. Nowakowski recalls having internal discussions about whether this meant that Unreal Engine 5 was ready to ship the studio's games, and the decision at the time was no. However, after fostering a relationship with Epic and working on the engine itself, the studio was confident that it could adopt the engine for its own games. "It was more the moment we got an early scoop of the Matrix demo that Epic made, and we then asked ourselves: is UE5 ready to ship a game like we make... the answer is no, not at the moment, not at the entry level, but if we form a relationship with Unreal and if we work on certain things which are specifically required to make games of the size and scope... it could actually work." "Our goal was not really to create technology but to tell stories. But then we realized that in order to tell the stories the way we want to tell them, we do need to have the technology. [By using Unreal Engine 5] we're not going to be responsible for creating the technology from scratch but rather creating for that technology little things that actually make a big difference." It is worth noting that the decision to license an engine like Unreal Engine 5 or build an in-house one largely comes down to each company. While many across the industry prefer to simply license Unreal or Unity, others prefer to have a larger amount of control over the technology powering their games. One notable example of this would be Capcom with its RE Engine, which first made its debut with Resident Evil 7 in 2017, and continues to power recent games like Pragmata, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword. As for Unreal Engine 5, engineering production manager on The Witcher 4, Jan Hermanowicz, had spoken about how the technical advancements made by Epic would also help CD Projekt with its future games, allowing for faster turnaround on projects. He noted that "the more tailored, the more appropriate for our type of game the pipelines are and the technology is, the easier it is to make the game." "We have multiple projects in flight now. [Cyberpunk 2077 sequel] Orion moved to pre-production." The Witcher 4 doesn't yet have a release date and is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Follow Gamingbolt: