Bite my shiny metal ass and praise Hypnotoad! Epic just announced that Futurama is the next big IP that is getting dumped and mushed into the pop culture slurry that is the free-to-play battle royale juggernaut Fortnite.
For those who aren’t as cool as Slurms McKenzie and don’t know much about Futurama, here’s the 411: Back in 1999, Simpsons creator Matt Groening and writer David X. Cohen developed an animated comedy starring a man who accidentally gets sent into the future via cryogenics and a prank pizza order. He quickly meets up with some loveable scamps, like Bender the drinking robot, and goes on wild adventures involving aliens, sci-fi cliches, and modern-day celebs who live in the future as jars in heads. The show has been canceled and brought back a few times, leading to this month’s newest season on Hulu. And just in time for Futurama’s (third) return, Epic is teasing a big Fortnite event.
On July 25, the official Fortnite Twitter account posted a very (very) short teaser showing the famous Planet Express delivery spaceship flying toward a large building that was displaying the glorious Hypnotoad. As is tradition and just like in the opening of every Futurama episode, the Planet Express ship ends up crashing into the building’s digital billboard, destroying it in the process.
As part of the short teaser and tweet, Epic also published a link to a YouTube video that will go live tomorrow, July 26, at… *double checks time* 4 a.m CST. Come on Epic, that’s too late for a weekday. Anyway, presumably this video will be released alongside the Futurama content, which at least seems to include a Planet Express glider as seen in the teaser.
As for what else could appear in Fortnite as part of this animated crossover, there’s a lot of options. We could potentially see Futurama characters like Bender, Fry, Leela, and Zap Branigan show up in the store as skins. Perhaps a backpack that contains Nibbler or Fry’s dead dog fossil? Maybe even the Robot Devil!?
As excited as I am for this new Fortnite update, and I am very excited, I’m also a little sad. With each new franchise and IP that Fortnite consumes, it becomes a bigger, more gelatinous glob of references and iconic characters. A hungry machine that must always be fed and which is never satisfied. This is how everything seems to be going these days, as more and more pop culture blends together. I fear a future where all media exists in only a handful of places and nothing is allowed to be its own thing. But until then, I’ll enjoy killing randos in Fortnite as Bender.