Fortnite has become somewhat synonymous with collabs. Be it with brands, media personalities, as was the case with the Marshmallow collaboration, or movies and series, there doesn’t seem to be anything the Fortnite loves more than IP crossovers. In fact, there has already been a collaboration between the massively popular battle royale title and the hit Netflix series Stranger Things. But I’d be remiss to point out how lackluster that collab back in 2019 was.
However, according to a deep dive of the game’s V2.10 update that recently went live, Epic Games might be hitting reset on the 2019 collab and giving us the Stranger Things crossover we deserve.
On the surface, the V2.10 update featured the introduction of Fortnite’s second collaboration with Naruto and brought in a little more of that dark side goodness with a Darth Vader NPC whose only goal in life is to hunt you down and end your battle royale career. However, as with most releases these days, there’s a little more to the update than meets the eye. As it turns out, FNBRintel spotted a singular clue in the updated game’s code. As told by their recent Twitter post:
‘There’s currently an encrypted set called “WaffleWarrior” and in the series, the character “Eleven” only eats waffles. Could be a stretch but if it is a Stranger Things collab we will see the skins on July 1st with S4 VOL 2!’
As they added, this could be a little bit of a stretch, however, they are completely correct when they highlight waffles as Eleven’s favorite food. This is a character trait that even the show has highlighted by having it be one of the character’s quirks since season 1. On the other hand, there’s already a character in Fortnite named Mancake whose entire face is made of pancakes. It could stand to reason then that WaffleWarrior may be a clever reference to either him or a new character based on him.
As we previously mentioned, the 2019 Fortnite X Stranger Things collaboration didn’t live up to expectations or the hype generated by one of the most popular games on every platform teaming up with one of the most popular shows on Netflix. Epic added only two skins – a Demogorgon and a strange-looking Hopper. Therefore, there’s definitely a demand for a proper collaboration.
None of this is set in stone though. We’ll have to wait and see if any other clues drop in the coming updates, media releases, or in-game assets. It would be cool to have a collab like that drop soon though, given that Stranger Things season four is dropping this Friday. In the meantime, there’s a rumor that Fortnite is teaming up with Dead by Daylight!
