Fortnite has had almost every crossover at this stage from Dragon Ball and Marvel to LEGO, but one brand that Epic believes could top them all is…drum… Nintendo!
Speaking to Axios in Los Angeles this week, Fortnite ecosystem head Saxs Persson admitted that Epic has made an incredible attempt to acquire the legendary video game company behind Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong, but has failed to make significant progress.
When asked how hard Epic tried to win over Nintendo, Persson told Axios, “I don’t know what the word is for making diamonds.”
If it does happen, it could be Epic’s biggest crossover ever. Persson believes Fortnite’s player base would “love it”:
“Nintendo has their strategy and we have our strategy, and hopefully at some point” we’ll use their characters, Perrson said, because “our players would love that.”
Given Nintendo’s history and the way it protects certain IPs, we certainly can’t see Mario running around the battlefield with a tactical assault rifle. And Shigeru Miyamoto once famously suggested that Rare’s cult first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 should end with a lot less violence.
Perhaps Epic could find a workaround, similar to its recent collaboration with Rocket League and LEGO. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Epic’s interest in getting a Nintendo series in its popular battle royale. Back in 2021, internal documents and a comic revealed that Samus from the Metroid series was also on the wishlist for a Fortnite crossover.
