Epic chose a surreal way to close out a surreal decade.
I like Star Wars and I like Fortnite. I like Sonic. I like Geoff Keighley, too, I suppose. I like many things! But I don’t know if I like all the things I like at once, piled on top of one another, melting down into a single moaning, writhing organism.
Over the weekend, a new clip from the upcoming Star Wars movie The Rise of Skywalker debuted in Fortnite. It wasn’t just projected on a drive-in movie screen, though. There was an elaborate preamble in the form of a Millenium Falcon and TIE Fighter dogfight set against the looming silhouette of a Star Destroyer. The theatrics kicked off about 15 minutes later than the intended time because too many people wanted to see the clip (and get a free glider), enough to bust Epic’s login services across Fortnite and the Epic Games Store.
The whole ordeal was a smiling nightmare, as if the entire decade of pop culture—memes and movies and viral dances—was chucked into a single swirling collage.
I try to catch the event myself, but I’m booted from a match, so I settle for an assortment of Twitch streamers instead. I watch a Batman scuttle by in one. A member of the New England Patriots enters the frame in another, materializing a chair beneath them (an emote). Rey bounces by on a pogo stick. A Stranger Things Demogorgon practices some building maneuvers.
All this before the Millenium Falcon zips around and pew-pews and lands at the center of the map. A holographic projection with the voice of Geoff Keighley, who I’d just watched host The Game Awards a few days earlier, appears in front of the ship. He’s speaking to us live. There are requests to show excitement through emotes. Black Widow doing Orange Justice. A Hotdog flossing.
The ship opens and a Stormtrooper walks out. I recognize the voice as Ben Schwartz, the voice of BB-8 but also the voice of Sonic in the upcoming CG movie. I think of the redesigned movie Sonic which only makes me thing of the old, horrifying, human-teeth-having version of movie Sonic. This image joins the scene and stays, no matter how much I try to push it out of my mind. Sonic makes jokes, drums up more excitement, and announces the imminent arrival of J.J. Abrams.
Source: The Fortnite Star Wars event will haunt me | PC Gamer