Many people on Twitter have preemptively gotten their hopes up after seeing a rather viral video regarding Fortnite. That video in question is about the rumored Fortnite x Pokemon collab. It’s provoking a lot of chatter among both fandoms, leaving many people wondering, is Pokemon coming to Fortnite? Can we also “believe it” just as we were told by Epic Games?
Is Pokemon Coming to Fortnite?
To the disappointment of many, Pokemon is not coming to Fortnite. That trailer which has amassed over a million views and many reposts after was fanmade. If you haven’t seen it, it starts with Peely on a motorcycle being chased by bad guys in a truck. The whole chase is halted as Ash from Pallet Town steps up, with Pikachu on his shoulder.
What happens next is that he throws his Pokeball out, summoning Charizard. His Charizard then proceeds to shoot a fireball from its mouth and destroy the truck, saving Peely.
We can gush all we want from this fanmade trailer and break down any sort of inconsistencies, but to see something like this actually come to Fortnite would bring huge numbers to the game.
As we have already seen in the past, big anime franchises like Naruto, Dragon Ball, and now My Hero Academia have entered the popular battle royale game. There are a few things holding the Pokemon IP back from being in other collaborations with video games.
The first obvious one here is that the games are exclusive to Nintendo, aside from those on mobile devices. If at this point we haven’t seen other Nintendo IPs being introduced into Fortnite, there’s almost no chance that Pokemon will be a thing in this game. Second, guns and Pokemon are something that the creators aren’t too fond of when it comes to meshing.
While Pokemon is supposed to be targeted at younger audiences, we’ve seen episodes that have been modified or banned because of the depiction of firearms. Yes, the argument can be made that the IP exists in Smash Bros and there are guns in those games, but Fortnite is a shooter game.
But now, this all really boils down to what Epic and Nintendo can do for any future collaborations. Just don’t keep your hopes up for things like this anytime soon.
Fortnite is free to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices.
