Fortnite has proven off its character roster for Overdrive, the battle royale’s upcoming season themed round legendary video video games.
Gamers can have already seen quite a few franchises confirmed to be getting crossovers, together with Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Kingdom Hearts, Persona, Tetris, Pac-Man, Mega Man and 99 Nights within the Forest. Certainly, teases for a lot of of those popped up briefly within the recreation’s newest stay occasion this previous weekend (extra on that later).
At this time, Fortnite maker Epic Video games has highlighted the skins set to be accessible within the Overdrive battle cross, which function a string of legally distinct online game parodies (plus the precise Sonic the Hedgehog, form of).
There’s been loads of dialogue over the weekend amongst followers that the precise online game collaborations appear to have primarily been disregarded of the subsequent Fortnite battle cross, to be bought individually by way of the sport’s store. On the one hand, that is nothing uncommon — Fortnite usually solely options one or two licensed characters in its battle cross lineup. On the opposite, followers had been working below the impression that the lineup would seemingly function extra of the well-known faces used to tease the season to this point.
As an alternative, at present’s admittedly wonderful 32-bit trailer options Fortnite hero Jonesy scooping up a collection of authentic characters from numerous online game realities. There is a Hyperlink look-alike named Bastion, a Mario Kart racer named K1TTYW1NS, a blocky Minecraft-like character named Wrixel, and a Lara Croft-esque soldier named Grace Crowne.
Rounding out the cross are Mortal Kombat-esque fighter Mali and Name of Responsibility-style soldier Phantom. These can be joined by a Sega-sanctioned Sonic the Hedgehog, in addition to a brand new pores and skin for Fortnite’s final Massive Dangerous, Geno.
A enjoyable word right here on Sonic the Hedgehog, for Sonic lore followers. The model of the character in Fortnite has been confirmed to be not the precise Sonic the Hedgehog, so don’t fret about him taking pictures weapons or dancing the Griddy. An official Fortnite and Sonic crossover comic not solely confirms that Geno is working Dr. Robotnik, however that the model of Sonic (and Knuckles, and Shadow) playable in Fortnite can be a extra humanoid-sized android imbued with the precise Sonic and crew’s bio-data.
Why is all this taking place? It is a good query. Nicely, in final weekend’s stay occasion, dangerous man Geno and the heroic Seven fought for management of actuality — leading to it primarily being rebooted with online game cheat codes. For Fortnite lore followers, the story drop truly clarified some questions on how Fortnite’s actuality loop operates (the vanity of its battle royale is mainly a programmed layer on prime of the “actual world”). Conveniently, it additionally noticed the sport “hacked” with numerous retro gaming franchises, and the Zero Level macguffin changed with a large online game cartridge. (Bodily media lives!)
To play with Robo-Sonic and crew your self, Fortnite: Overdrive kicks off later this week on August 20, that means you will have simply a few days left to stage up your present battle cross and accumulate any remaining Sprites a complete new technology rolls round.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You possibly can attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social