Fortnite is about to open up a new portal to another dimension, which it has used to bring a number of “hunters” into this season. And things just keep getting stranger, and further away from the original hunter theme.

Fortnite dataminers have found the image from the upcoming portal which is 100% from TRON, as you can see in the comparison shot below.

Fortnite has introduced all manner of “hunters” from different universes this season. They have gone back to past IP deals for Star Wars (The Mandalorian), Marvel (Captain Marvel, Black Panther), DC (Green Arrow) and then expanded beyond that to Terminator with T-1000 and Sarah Connor and Predator. But now? Things are just getting weird and well away from the hunter theme. The last two hunters are now The Flash and someone from TRON. How are they “hunters” like the others, exactly?

This season it seems like it’s less about staying on theme than it is simply extending the reach of Epic’s IP collection as it continues to try to form the Metaverse. I think we’re already at a point where Epic probably has the largest, most diverse collection of IPs in a single game across video game history. They have buckets of heroes and villains from arguably the three biggest pop culture universes in existence, Star Wars, Marvel and DC, but have shown an interest in simply dipping a toe in anything you recognize, even if Terminator and Predator and TRON all hit screens decades before many Fortnite players were even born.

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As ever, I continue to get this picture in my head of Ready Player One in which everyone is walking around in a giant virtual space with characters from pretty much every IP in existence. While Fortnite isn’t VR, in a way, it’s already kind of there, as this is a game where you can play as Batman, fly into a match in the Millennium Falcon and hack up opponents with Kratos’ Blades of Chaos.

Granted, what you can do with all these characters is current restricted to battle royale gameplay, Fortnite creative islands or the occasional concert or movie trailer premiere, but you can see the long game here. Now that these skins are in Fortnite, they’re not going anywhere, and I would predict that these deals are just going to continually snowball. I made a Twitter joke about Destiny Fortnite skins the other day and Donald Mustard tagged game director Luke Smith immediately. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a joke turn into reality in a few months, given that every IP is going to want to have some sort of “Fortnite representation” soon enough here, and that’s not only true of movies and TV shows, but other games as well, as Fortnite has now racked up partnerships with Borderlands, God of War, Halo and more.

Something big is coming from Epic, mark my words.

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