Ninja Finally Gets His Own ‘Fortnite’ Skin, Available Soon: Check It Out Here

Share to facebook

Share to linkedin

Fortnite

Credit: Epic Games

Ever since Fortnite blew up in late 2017, earl 2018, one name has been synonymous with its status as international sensation. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins saw his celebrity rise alongside Epic’s battle royale game, reaching lofty heights of mainstream celebrity that no streamer had ever really seen before. And now, here in early 2020, he’s finally getting his own skin in-game. Starting tomorrow night, players will have the opportunity to drop some cash and cosplay as Blevins himself, or at least an in-game representation.

Epic’s announcement doesn’t include an image of the skin, but thanks to Fortnite’s always-active datamining community we can get an early peek at what the whole cosmetic set will look like:

Epic says that this is the beginning of a new “icon” series featuring other influencers. Next up will be Loserfruit and TheGrefg, and we can expect to see all sorts of other people in the game after this. Details on the deal aren’t clear, but we can assume that Ninja and the other creators will be seeing a cut of sales.

Curiously, this icon series don’t represent the first “real person” skins to arrive in Fortnite. That honor goes to Jung Chan-Woo, the K-Pop star who debuted in-game in the form of the “Ikonik” skin as part of a Samsung promotion. DJ Marshmello sort of counts, but that was really more a skin of an iconic mask than it was a real human being. And while we saw JJ Abrams and Geoff Keighley in-game a few weeks ago, those were not introduced as playable skins.

It all feels like part of Fortnite’s continuing effort to make itself into a platform for real-world brands, whether those are movies, shoes, games or people. Streamers have long blurred the lines between their digital an real-life personas, but this represents a major step towards the metaverse-like future of the game that Epic has been building towards ever since the rocket launch.

It’s also a boon for Ninja, who is no longer the biggest streamer in Fortnite but has found that his generally family-friendly image has made him an ideal ally for all sorts of brands from Epic to Microsoft and more.

Tweet