It's been a wild few years for both Star Wars and Fortnite. The popular movie franchise and mega battle royale game have certainly engender... divisive responses among audiences. It makes sense then, that Epic Games and Disney would sense a certain... kinship in one another, and use Fortnite as a way to promote Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
As we reported last week, Disney opted to use the battle royale as a platform to air an exclusive clip from the final chapter in the current Star Wars saga. The clip itself wasn't particularly interesting. What happened soon afterwards, however, effectively links Star Wars and Fortnite forever. Some have pointed out, in fact, that it can now be implied that the two franchises are set in the same universe... and therefore whatever happens in Fortnite technically then happens in Star Wars.
What am I talking about? To really get into it we are going to have to talk a little bit about the latest Star Wars flick. If you haven't seen it, please don't read on to avoid being spoiled. If you have seen it, or just don't care about spoilers, please feel free to continue below the video.
Advert
In the opening text crawl for The Rise of Skywalker, we're informed that "the dead speak!" It goes on to tell us how Emperor Palpatine - previously assumed dead - has sent a mysterious broadcast across the galaxy threatening to return and seek vengeance. I should point out, you never hear this broadcast in the movie itself.
However, you can in fact hear the Emperor's shady tones in the aforementioned Fortnite/Star Wars crossover event. As you can see/hear from the video above, his message rings out towards the end of the event - not as part of the exclusive scene that was played, but throughout the actual world of Fortnite as TIE fighters zoom overhead.
Does... does this technically make Fortnite Star Wars canon? I mean, the battle royale was the only place you could hear something that the movie explicitly went on to reference, so it... kind of does? I thought Marvel wanting us to watch its Disney+ shows to understand its next lot of movies was bad.
I don't actually think for a second that this was intentional, to be clear. More than likely, the Emperor's threat was supposed to be in the movie and in Fortnite, but it simply didn't make the cut in what is already a massively over-stuffed big screen experience.
Advert
I'm sure Star Wars fans - who famously have super chill and measured reactions to everything - will debate this in good spirit over the next few weeks. I've no doubt that Disney and/or Epic will come out soon and deny that Fortnite is Star Wars canon, but for now? The evidence is pretty much there. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Featured Image Credit: Epic/DisneyTopics: epic games, Fortnite, Disney, Battle Royale