A new batch of leaks has emerged from Fortnite showcasing some original skins, but yet more licensed IPs. Morty from Rick and Morty is coming. Music artist J. Balvin is coming. And Will Smith is coming.

Well, not literally Will Smith, but Will Smith’s Mike Lowrey character from the Bad Boys franchise. Which is pretty much Will Smith in a tight shirt with weapons.

I don’t know why this is like a breaking point in my own mind, but I do sort of have to stop and take stock of what Fortnite is doing here. There isn’t a new Bad Boys movie coming that we know about. There has not been a Bad Boys movie since January 2020, almost two years ago. Fortnite is just…collecting stuff to collect it.

I’ve tracked all this on my grand licensed Fortnite Metaverse list, where I chronicle how Fortnite is trying to become the literal realization of Ready Player One, a place where we can have Batman getting in gunfights with Thor and Chun-Li and Lebron James.

It’s funny, but the pace of these collaborations has accelerated, and the perception that Fortnite has turned into one giant ad is growing. I don’t…really even know if that’s the right take, however.

We have seen some very clear timed crossovers, recently Bloodsport arrived alongside the new Suicide Squad movie. Lebron hit when his Space Jam movie came out. Most of the time these IPs are showing up without advertising anything in particular. We’ve gotten a slew of Street Fighter skins recently with no real Street Fighter news. Wonder Woman is about to show up, despite WW1984 being ages ago. The CW’s Green Arrow appeared after that show had ended. We’ve pulled Xenomorphs and Predator and now Mike Lowrey, far outside their window of relevance.

Fortnite just…wants it all. They want this massive collection of IPs, and they want to be the only place that has this many. And they do, no other game is even close, though you will see the odd cross promotion here and there. I’ve charted that recently they’re almost running out of mainstream superheroes to even acquire at this point. The core Avengers and JLA members are almost “complete” with only a few missing. So this is why we’re expanding to Will Smith, Arianna Grande and more TV, movie and video game properties, and no one, no matter how random, seems off the table.

Right now, all this means is that you can…play Fortnite with these skins. And at it’s core, Fortnite is a battle royale shooter that occasionally dabbles in more wacky minigames on the side, or live events like concerts.

My guess is that the ultimate goal of this collection is a “true” launch of the Fortnite Metaverse, a phase 2 that involves some sort of persistent world not centered around storms and gunfire. That hasn’t been announced, but again, it seems inevitable, like Fortnite is stocking up on these IPs for something much, much larger. Trust me, keep an eye on this.

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