The Battle Bust: Fortnite’s Inflated IP Landscape

“Where’re we dropping?”

It is difficult to describe a cultural phenomenon of interactive entertainment that has dominated Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture quite like the video game Fortnite. Originally launched in 2017 as a collaborative story mode subtitled “Save the World”, developer Epic Games released the “Battle Royale” mode later that year, permanently altering the trajectory of modern gaming. While the “battle royale” format, in which players compete against each other until only one victor remains, already existed in various first-person shooter game modes, Fortnite distinguished itself through a brightly animated, accessible aesthetic that appealed to a younger and more casual audience. It has since accumulated over 650 million active players in its nearly decade-long availability as a free-to-play title.

The game was an immediate success, nearly 40% of people under thirty report having played the game. But, as a free mode on an otherwise purchasable game, Epic Games needed to figure out how to monetize the Battle Royale’s popularity without implementing advertisements. Their solution: cosmetic customization. In game, players can alter their avatar, weapons, gliders, emotes, and even background music by making purchases with an in-game currency known as V-Bucks. Because V-Bucks are acquired through real money transactions, players seeking anything beyond the default experience were effectively required to spend.

These customizations were entirely original for the game’s first three seasons. That changed in 2018 when Epic Games announced that for Season 4 of Battle Royale, Fortnite would be collaborating with Marvel Studios in conjunction with their mega-blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War. The collaboration added a limited-time game mode featuring iconic villain Thanos as an additional boss during the main battle. This proved enormously successful, with fans of both Fortnite and Marvel films reveling in the ability to play as their favorite characters in their favorite game. Season 8 subsequently included skins of well-known Marvel superheroes’ film-based props in tandem with Avengers: Endgame. But this was just the beginning of Fortnite’s now signature release of both real world and fictional figures in collaboration with their game. What would come in the next eight years was a deluge of outside content that some say has completely mutated the game into an unrecognizable Frankenstein of intellectual property.

In the years since, Fortnite has collaborated with some of the largest and most popular franchises in pop culture: real world organizations like the NFL and automobile manufacturers; action series like John Wick and Kill Bill; sci-fi/fantasy franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter; even adult animated television empires like The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. In early 2019, they extended this model to real life figures, hosting their first in-game concert with the electronic music artist Marshmello. Following this, Fortnite has created avatar collaborations with massive celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Sabrina Carpenter, and most recently Chappell Roan. These collaborations have continuously garnered significant social media attention.

These are in addition to a completely separate mode in Fortnite in collaboration with the Lego company: every map and character must also be re-rendered in Lego form to play the game in a brick-like environment instead. Lego is already known for their extensive IP collaborations, so having all designs be mutually compatible and recognizable has already doubled the amount of pop culture depictions in Fortnite. This already exhaustive list is just a fraction of the licensed material present in Fortnite; it seems like almost every crevice of pop culture has been scoured by Epic Games to stock their repository of IP. Between countless copyright, trademark, and publicity licensing, one cannot help but imagine the entertainment landscape as a carcass left once vultures have plucked it dry.

This mass accumulation of IP has fundamentally reshaped Fornite’s original purpose. What began as a straightforward, cartoon-style shooting game has become a cosmetics-driven experience in which enjoyment is increasingly linked to purchased identity. Players are incentivized to spend money to remain competitive in appearance, even if not in gameplay. Losing a match while wearing a default soldier skin against a beloved pop-culture icon can be humiliating, reinforcing the idea that participation without customization is insufficient to fully enjoy the game.

Additionally, this proliferation of licensed content has contributed to an overwhelming expansion of gameplay modes. Fortnite now hosts escape rooms, scavenger hunters, and experimental modes which do not resemble the original game as a first-person shooter. Even entire franchises can exist as self-contained modes. For example, rather than developing a standalone video game adaptation, the popular South Korean drama Squid Game was effectively absorbed into Fortnite as a themed game mode. This somewhat gluttonous consolidation of game modes and customization has the opposite effect on the interactive entertainment industry as a whole. Why would developers make anything independently if Fortnite can do it for you. When Fortnite essentially has a de facto monopoly on realistic, standard, and computerized “avatar-ization”, all of pop culture risks funneling into a single corporate platform by default.

Finally, there are practical limitations on this business model. As Fortnite absorbs more licensed assets, performance issues become increasingly apparent, particularly on older generation hardware. Even on newer platforms with lower processing power, Fortnite does not have a reputation for always running smoothly. A game never originally designed to support such vast and varied content now struggles with optimization. Server strain, lag, and other technical instability reflect the growing tension between Fortnite as a game and Fortnite as a platform. The more the experience is inflated by intellectual property agreements, the more its sustainability is called into question

Fortnite remains an unparalleled juggernaut and central hub of contemporary pop culture. These collaborations have been extensive and undeniably iconic, but Epic Games should be wary of prioritizing perpetual expansion over refinement. A game that seeks to contain everything risks losing the coherence that made it compelling in the first place.

*The views expressed in this article do not represent the views of Santa Clara University.