Fortnite's crossovers can't compete with those of Dead by Daylight

In the last five years, Fortnite has evolved into a hub for popular culture. As a family-friendly online multiplayer game, Fortnite's crossover potential was evident from the start, and Marvel was the first to recognize and leverage that potential. They brought the first high-profile crossover with the Avengers: Infinity War event into the game. Since then, the floodgates have opened, and Fortnite constantly receives crossovers from the entire entertainment industry, spanning film franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, and DC, to television series like The Walking Dead and Futurama, including anime such as Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia.

Fortnite's crossovers now occur rapidly and frequently, becoming an integral part of the gaming experience in recent years. They are often included in Fortnite's seasonal Battle Pass and come with their own extensive limited-time modes. While Fortnite's crossovers are generally quite impressive, they are not always perfect, and many of them lack the same level of effort and integration that Dead by Daylight brings to its own crossovers.

Fortnite's Crossovers Just Aren't as Impactful as Dead By Daylight's

Fortnite's crossovers have been overall quite good, especially in the past year or two, and occasionally even outstanding. In the worst cases, recent collaborations in Fortnite brought some paid cosmetics and skins to the game, all based on popular franchises with large fanbases. And in the best cases, Fortnite's crossovers have exceeded expectations. They include separate mini Battle Passes with exclusive rewards, a variety of themed quests, and limited-time sets of mythical weapons directly sourced from the franchise material.

It is clear that a great deal of effort is put into the vast majority of Fortnite collaborations, and the fact that most crossover events can be experienced completely for free makes them worthwhile events to watch, especially for fans of the chosen franchise. That being said, a good portion of Fortnite's crossovers ultimately consists only of skins and has no impact on the actual gameplay. In combination with the frequency at which Fortnite now releases its collaborations, the significance of the game's crossovers diminishes somewhat, and many of them blend together.

Dead by Daylight doesn't have the same problem. Released as early as 2016, Dead by Daylight received its first crossover just a few months after the game's launch, with the addition of Michael Myers from Halloween as a killer. Since then, Dead by Daylight has conducted several collaborations with horror franchises, ranging from iconic movies like Saw and The Ring to other horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. However, what sets Dead by Daylight's crossovers apart from Fortnite is their integration within the game itself.

Every Dead by Daylight crossover has a significant impact on the game and its meta. Each new crossover typically brings a new killer, a new survivor, and a new map, all dedicated to the respective franchise. With each of the Dead by Daylight crossovers, it becomes evident how passionate the developers are about collaborating with the license, and this passion is reflected in a wealth of references and fan service, largely integrated into the gameplay itself through the unique abilities of the killer and the skills of individual characters. In addition to providing new ways to play with these characters and maps, Dead by Daylight crossovers also retroactively add more value to the rest of the game, as new skills can be transferred to other characters in the game. This, combined with the rarity of each crossover, contributes to each Dead by Daylight collaboration feeling like a major event, which is not always the case with Fortnite's own crossovers.

Fortnite is now available for Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.