Fortnite has always pushed the envelope when it comes to expanding its cosmetics library. Despite its battle royale game mode being entirely free-to-play, cosmetics in the form of playable characters, weapon skins, emotes, and much more keep Fortnite lucrative enough to grab ideas for new playable characters from increasingly hard to predict sources.
Season 5 opens with a trailer building up this season's theme of "hunters." Case in point, this season alone has brought players The Terminator, The Mandalorian, and even G.I. Joe's Snake Eyes as playable character skins, stretching the possibilities of what makes a feasible character recreation in Fortnite. In being no strangers to including decidedly mascot-shaped skins, circulating rumors and a few subtle clues have pointed to a possible crossover with Five Nights at Freddy's.
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Snake Eyes had brought more than just a blast from the past to player's respective armories. Presumably in an effort to keep updates concise and to expedite the rolling out of future content, attached to the update that brought the latest Snake Eyes skin to Fortnite are files detailing a set of encrypted audio files under what leaker Lucas7yoshi has determined to be a codename for the game's next project. Credit to Epic games, its particular encryption strategy and effective hush policies have continued to surprise even the most curious of fans while seemingly drip-feeding them hints enough to stoke their intrigue.
The codename in question is bafflingly enough "FrenchFry." The established pattern discovered by leakers suggests that both Fs represent the initials of a new project, though a surprising contingent of Fortnite fans seem insistent that they belong to the Five Nights at Freddy's own animatronic antagonist Freddy Fazbear. Given the plethora of special guests coming to Fortnite, this prospect lies just comfortably enough within the realm of possibility to get fans of both games genuinely excited.
Releasing only three years apart from one another, both games debuted at a time where both fanbases would share several of the same corners of the internet, especially via memes. While it may seem that the Five Nights at Freddy's fans may be grabbing at straws, their collective love of theory crafting built up on obscure clues goes hand in hand with how Fortnite's promotions have typically handled themselves, favoring the cryptic approach. Given that both followings have been known to enjoy a good investigative deep-dive, especially with new content at stake, this latest pack of "hunters" coming to Fortnite is more likely than one would think.
Fortnite is available on Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.