You won’t see Samus in Fortnite due to Nintendo exclusivity says ex-Fortnite Boss

Ex-Fortnite boss Donald Mustard has revealed in an interview why Nintendo won’t let a Samus Aran skin in Fortnite. Here’s the reason.

Fortnite is known to engage in collaborations with not only celebrities but also iconic video game characters across various franchises and platforms. Over the past years, Fortnite has collaborated with Halo, Uncharted, God of War, and Street Fighter to bring their characters as in-game cosmetics.

However, when it comes to Nintendo, Samus Aran has been a top choice for Ex-Fortnite boss Donald Mustard. Samus is the protagonist of the long-running Nintendo-exclusive franchise Metroid, with the first game going back as early as 1986.

But when Epic and Mustard approached Nintendo for a Metroid x Fortnite crossover, things got a bit more complicated with Nintendo only wanting their exclusive characters to appear on their console, even though, Microsoft and Sony exclusive characters can be used across all platforms in Fortnite.

In a recent interview with Game File, Mustard spoke about his stint with Epic while working in Fortnite and said he wanted three crossover console skins in the game and only got two.

The skins in context are Halo’s Master Chief from Xbox, God of War’s Kratos from PlayStation, and Metroid’s Samus Aran from Nintendo. Chief and Kratos made it in the game as skins, but sadly Samus didn’t since Nintendo declined the offer.

“They got really hung up on their characters showing up on platforms that weren’t their platforms”, Mustard told Game File. Since Fortnite ran on all consoles and PCs, even mobile at the time, meaning all the console crossover skins would appear on all of them. But Nintendo didn’t like that.

“They would be thrilled to have Nintendo characters in Fortnite, but just only if it’s on their platform”, said Mustard elaborating on the situation.

Furthermore, he told Game File, that Epic would want the characters to be available on all platforms. “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 said.

Nintendo has collaborated with Fortnite in terms of Switch Bundle skins in the past that were only exclusive to owners of the console. However, those outfits were original designs by Epic and not famous characters. Still, there’s not been a single character from Nintendo-exclusive games that have made an appearance in Fortnite yet.