Fortnite: That's why there was never a Samus skin from Metroid Prime

Long-running Fortnite should have received another prominent skin with Samus from Metroid Prime. It has now become known why it didn't happen in the end.

The characters from several other video game series have made the jump to the island and to the long-running Fortnite from Epic Games. That's how it should have worked out in the case of Samus, the prominent protagonist from Nintendo's successful Metroid Prime series – but that didn't happen in the end because Nintendo had very specific ideas.

In the course of the legal dispute between Epic Games and Apple, documents became public in which it was said that a Samus Aran skin was also planned for Fortnite, but the futuristic bounty hunter from the Metroid series ultimately never arrived on the island. Donald Mustar, Creative Lead at Epic Games, has now commented more on the background in an interview.

Accordingly, discussions have already been held with Nintendo, but the Japanese would fundamentally object if their most famous characters appeared on platforms other than their own. “They've really hung up on having their characters appear on other platforms that aren't their own. They would have been thrilled to have Nintendo characters in Fortnite, but only if it was exclusively on theirs would have been a platform.”

In short: Samus Aran could have ended up in Fortnite, but according to Nintendo's wishes, it would only have ended up in the Switch version of the long-running battle royale. However, that was a red line for Epic Games. “For me and everyone else at Epic, this is a 'must-have'. We want to make sure Fortnite offers the same experience for everyone, regardless of what screen or device you play it on.”

Epic Games has come pretty far with its numerous cross-over efforts in Fortnite. There is hardly any other place in the entertainment business where you can have fun with Spider-Man, Batman, Darth Vader and John Wick equally and side by side. However, Nintendo characters will not be included because of the Japanese perspective as long as this does not change.