While some Fortnite fans were annoyed that the game was doing yet another “heist”-based season, it’s now abundantly clearly that the game is going for something completely different in terms of tone and vibes this time.
That tone and those vibes? Without question, this all feels heavily inspired by Grand Theft Auto with explosive-based bank heists, getaway car chases and running and gunning through dingy alleys to escape with the loot.
There’s a new trailer below that shows this off more than any promotional images have so far, and you can understand what I’m talking about pretty quickly. It’s extremely GTA, outside of, you know, the rapping Pickle and Hot Dog and anthropomorphic dog, rat and wolf characters.
The only thing that sort of interrupts the vibe is the appearance of a classic-skinned Sub-Zero, who shows up to throw ice around in a way that really does not mesh with anything else going on here. Past Fortnite seasons have tried to align themselves with IP crossovers that match their themes, but that’s not always the case as of course they’ve stuck plenty of random superheroes and video game characters into battle passes previously.
I am sticking by my theory that Fortnite may get actual, official Grand Theft Auto skins this season. Likely for past games, GTA 3, 4, 5, Vice City, San Andreas, some of those. Not GTA 6, as it’s hard to imagine Rockstar doing that kind of crossover promotion. The hitch to this idea here might be that GTA and Fortnite view each other as direct rivals in many ways, with millions of players occupying a shared world full of chaos and mayhem, and GTA 6 Online could poach a fair amount of Fortnite players. But we’ll see if they can work together.
I’m also wondering about a second round of Cyberpunk 2077 skins besides V and Johnny. Male V, Panam and Judy are all in keeping with the theme of this season. PAYDAY, the heist game, has tagged Fortnite in some tweets, but it’s unclear if that’s a real thing happening of if it’s just wishful thinking on the part of that somewhat low profile game at this point.
As for the trailer, we see a number of already-shown battle pass skins, but some that haven’t been seen before like the rat character. In addition to new IP collabs, we always see a lot of Fortnite originals as well. The season launches February 21, this upcoming Friday.
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