Now that he’s done battling the Avengers in “Infinity War,” Thanos is coming to the popular online battle royale game “Fortnite,” according to Entertainment Weekly.
The Mad Titan will appear in “Fortnite: Battle Royale” for a limited time starting Tuesday. The so-called “Infinity Gauntlet Limited Time Mashup” will be available for free across all “Battle Royale” platforms. It’s like a regular “Fortnite” match, but with one major difference — the Infinity Gauntlet will appear on the map. The first player who finds it can equip it and transform into Thanos himself and wield the power of all six Infinity Stones. And you thought the guided missile was overpowered.
“Fortnite” has turned into a massive phenomenon since its launch in July 2017. It’s now the largest free-to-play console game of all time. Fans spent an estimated 611 million hours watching it in March on sites like Twitch and YouTube, and they spent $223 million on its microtransactions, according to market intelligence firm SuperData. The mobile version of the game reportedly earned $25 million its first month and is so popular teachers asked students not to play during class.
Celebrities like rapper Drake and NBA star Gordon Hayward made headlines recently streaming themselves while they play. Drake and Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins broke a concurrent viewer record in March. (Ninja broke it again during a Las Vegas event.) Apparently, “Avengers: Infinity War” co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo are fans too.
“Over the past few months, while we were editing ‘Infinity War,’ we’d take breaks to hop on and get in a few games,” Joe Russo told EW. “And then we started thinking, how cool would it be to have some kind of ‘Avengers’-‘Fortnite’ mashup? So we stalked [Epic Games creative director Donald Mustard].”
After some mutual gushing, Mustard said they brainstormed and came up with the idea for the limited mode.
“‘Infinity War’ blew us away, and the Russos, [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige, and the whole team at Marvel have been incredible to work with,” Mustard said. “This kind of opportunity, where you have this mutual respect for someone’s work and you’re on the same page about doing something cool for fans, is rare and really exciting. We hope players love it.”