diecast fortnite
The next set of premium Season 4 skins just hit the market in Fortnite: Battle Royale. We may have taken a bit of a detour with club kids Nitelite and Liteshow, but now we're squarely back inside of Season 4's superhero narrative with these Chromium and Diecast skins -- the female and male versions of a similar looking metal-clad warrior. They're both matched to the excellent Persuader Pickaxe, which is basically four missiles on a stick. These characters leaked before, but now we have a better idea of just how they fit into things.
From what I can tell, there are three factions now present on the Fortnite map. There's a villain that likely has something to do with that skull-shaped mountain lair with a giant missile running through it -- probably Omega, the Tier 100 skin. There's a hero -- or group of heroes -- that lives in that mansion south of Lonely Lodge, complete with a hideout in the basement. That would appear to be Carbide, one of the free Battle Pass unlock skins. And then there's some sort of shadowy government force as represented by the big, growing research center in the middle of Dusty Divot and the occasional new building stuck out on the terrain. That force would seem to be represented by Battlehawk and Squad Leader, two of the "Super Soldier" skins available in the Battle Pass.
There's also a whole thing going on with movies, but we're still figuring out just what that means. Also, Thanos is around. There's a lot to keep track of.
When they first leaked, the Chromium and Diecast skins looked like they were superheroes, in one way or another -- they both bore a remarkable similarity to Colossus from X-Men, or maybe a more militarized version of Metal Mario. That would have stacked with the "group of superheroes" concept we see in both the mansion and Save the World.
Now, however, Epic has made pretty clear that these guys are some sort of government-manufactured super soldiers. In the reveal image we can clearly see the Squad Leader skin standing in the middle of a manufacturing line stacked with them -- maybe that's what all those factories on the map are for, at least now? The one in the front looks a little sly, so it's possible that she's looking to revolt in one way or another. Which wouldn't be the worst superhero origin story, after all.
The government narrative is one of the most open-ended we have so far -- the base in Dusty Divot is already expanding, and it seems like it's going to be a central feature of the weekly map updates. It's still a little unclear how Epic is going to be creating a character-based narrative when its only tools are map updates right now, but Overwatch-style animation and limited-time modes are always an option: Overwatch is sort of the gold standard right now for how to tell a narrative that takes place almost entirely outside of regular gameplay.
Regardless, we now have an idea of how Chromium and Diecast fit into this whole thing. Stay tuned for more, but of what kind, I really can't say.