Fortnite Icon Series starts with a Ninja outfit and teasers for more streamer collabs

The Fortnite Icon Series is bringing real-life personalities to the game, starting with the biggest Fortnite streamer of them all, Ninja. The new initiative to further blur the lines between Fortnite and reality will give Tyler "Ninja" Blevins his own long-awaited skin and item set, and you can pick it up on the in-game shop starting on Thursday at 4 pm PST / 7 pm EST / January 17 at midnight GMT.

The whole set encompasses the Ninja Outfit, Ninja's Edge Back Bling, Dual Katanas Pickaxe (which uses the dual-wielding pickaxe animations), and Ninja Style Emote. The outfit includes Ninja's trademark blue hair and headband, and it also his icon on the shoulder. Said icon is a little cartoon Ninja head with blue hair and a headband, for twice the blue hair and headbands in one skin.

Epic Games says the Icon Series will bring "the artistic vision, personality, and attitude of top creators to Fortnite". It's already teased future collaborations with Loserfruit and TheGrefg, two other major Fortnite streamers, and it sounds like the Icon Series' focus will expand from there with "more creators from games, music and entertainment". Does this mean we could one day have a straight-up Keanu Reeves skin to go along with our John Wick and Reaper skins? Then add a Neo skin from whenever The Matrix 4 comes out for a full, four-player Keanu squad? We can only hope.

Whatever direction the Fortnite Icon Series takes, it's all part of the continued global conquest of the Fortnite brand. Did you ever read that book Snow Crash? I'm convinced Fortnite will become the actual Metaverse in a year or two, only with less neurolinguistic programming and more cross-franchise promotions.

See what else is coming to the game with our look at the latest Fortnite patch notes.