In 2021, YouTuber and Twitch streamer Takened stirred up “Fortnite” controversy when he got himself banned on two separate accounts. Takened had tens of thousands of subscribers on both of his active platforms, and he played “Fortnite” competitively, but that all changed when he failed to qualify for the FNCS.

He decided to download cheats for the game, and was promptly banned before he could even get into a match. Not long after that, Takened started an alternate account and continued to use cheats while streaming and uploading videos to YouTube. Eventually, Takened’s alternate account was outed via Twitter by another “Fortnite” player, Jerian, and the whole situation came to a head.

In the wake of his second ban, Takened posted a video explaining the situation from his perspective. He owned up to cheating in the game, saying that after the stress of not qualifying for the FNCS, he decided to cheat because he planned on quitting “Fortnite” anyway. Takened explained that after the first ban, Jerian checked his PC for cheats and found none, because “[Takened] deleted everything before [Jerian] could check it.”

Takened said that upcoming college applications and his waning interest in “Fortnite” motivated him to cheat, his plan being to squeeze as much cash out of streaming as possible before leaving it all behind. He said that he hopes fans will be able to forgive him someday, but he’s been inactive in the game ever since.