‘Fortnite’ Announces New ‘Halo’ Skins, Teases ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ Collab – And Possibly ‘Dino Thunder’ – For Post-‘Superman’ Battle Pass
In ostensible service of the American Super Sentai adaptation’s current ‘revival push’, Fortnite has teased that in addition to a new set of Halo content, its upcoming Chapter 6, Season 4 Battle Pass will also feature an appearance by Power Rangers mainstay Tommy Oliver – and not just in his Mighty Morphin’ forms.
Going from ‘rumor’ to ‘all but outright confirmed’ in about 48 hours, word of Epic Games’ potential team-up with the Morphin’ Grids’ most oversaturated representatives was first let slip courtesy of a July 30th info leak, as provided by the noted and aptly-pseudonymed Fortnite leaker ‘Leaky’.
Therein, he alleged that following the August 7th conclusion of the current superhero/Superman-themed battle pass, the next offering would not only feature a female Halo Spartan skin as its Tier 1, unlocked-immediately-upon-purchase-of-the-battle-pass reward, but also a Tommy Oliver skin at its final Tier 100, as well as a MegaZord skin as a ‘secret reward’.
From there, August 2nd would see the commencement of the Super Showdown live-event, which would ultimately resolve with players, alongside both the students of the in-universe Supernova Academy and Superman himself, pushing back an attempt by the thus-far-unidentified Dark Presence to escape the Spirit Realm and invade the current game map setting of Oninoshima.
However, while the immediate threat is shut down, the heroes soon find that a severed tentacle belonging to the Dark Presence, as disconnected from the villain’s main form by Superman, has begun expelling a number of ‘nests’ across the map, each of which proceed to begin breeding a mass of glowing purple bugs.
With this new infection setting in across the map, in the immediate aftermath of the event, Epic Games would confirm Leaky’s rumor regarding female Spartans, tweeting out an image of two such MJOLNIR armor-clad heroines investigating one of the aforementioned nests with the caption, “Yeah, we called the experts in for this one…”
“UNSC Spartans FOR THE VICTORY!! (and in the new Battle Pass),” they added. “Get them August 7!”
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In response to this tweet, one fan moved to ask the developers point blank, “PLEASE CONFIRM POWER RANGERS”, his request including an animated GIF of Tommy, as played by the late Jason David Frank, bellowing out the team’s signature battle call in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie and another of the MegaZord’s post-assembly, ‘readying-up’ animation.
And rather than just letting this tweet settle into the ether alongside the scores of others from fans hoping to see their favorite characters added to the game, Epic Games directly responded to the fan with a pair of emojis – ‘smirking’ and ‘Shhh (as in to quiet)’ – as meant to imply that they had something the Power Rangers hopeful would like, but they could not yet talk about.
Given the thus far 100% accuracy of Leaky’s recent information, there exists a more than likely chance that the rest of his future content hints will also come to fruition, including Tommy’s featured styles being his White Ranger and Black Ranger forms.
As the franchise face did not wear this color until the series’ 12th season, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, it would be genuinely surprising if he actually appears with such a skin, particularly in light of how those in charge of the franchise, from Nickelodeon, to Disney, to Saban, to Hasbro, are outright obsessed with milking Mighty Morphin’ nostalgia for all it’s worth.
But then again, credit where credit is due, giving their licensed characters the given the best treatment they’ve received in recent years is sort of par for the course for Fortnite at this point.
As noted by Epic Games, the next battle pass rolls out on August 7th.
