Fortnite never got Metroid series hero Samus, because Nintendo would only let her into the battle royale if she was a Switch-exclusive character

Metroid Prime Remastered — (Image credit: Nintendo)

Epic Games' former chief creative officer and Fortnite boss has revealed why the Battle Royale has never added Metroid hero Samus to the battle royale, and it's simply because she couldn't be a Nintendo Switch-exclusive character.

A few years ago, Metroid fans were teased with some truly tantalizing information. According to a 2020 Epic Games business review revealed during the Epic v Apple lawsuit in 2021, the battle royale devs seemed interested in adding Samus in what would have been the first Nintendo collaboration. Fortnite is constantly adding new collabs – your typical match can see Resident Evil's Leon Kennedy, My Hero Academia's Deku, and even Lady Gaga duking it out for the Victory Royale. However, to this day no Nintendo characters have been introduced, and in a new Game File interview, former Fortnite lead Donald Mustard claims Nintendo "got really hung up on their characters showing up on platforms that weren't their platforms."

Elaborating on this, Mustard goes as far as to say that Nintendo "would be thrilled to have Nintendo characters in Fortnite, but just only if it's on their platform." Obviously, that's not at all an ideal situation for Fortnite, which is playable on a plethora of platforms including Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and even mobile devices, not just Switch. Although Epic offers bonuses such as PlayStation Plus-exclusive free skins, they can still appear on every platform, meaning you could theoretically redeem them on PlayStation but continue playing on Xbox as normal.

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"For me and for all of Epic, we’re like, 'That is an absolute must. We want to make sure that Fortnite is the same experience, no matter what screen or device you're playing on,'" Mustard continues.

It's worth keeping in mind that Mustard left Epic Games last September, so there's a chance that Nintendo's stance on exclusivity could have changed since then. However, if not, it unfortunately doesn't sound like we'll get to see Samus, Link, or Mario launching themselves out of the Battle Bus any time soon.

For more games like Fortnite, be sure to check out our roundup of the best battle royale games.

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I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.