blue squire fortnite skin
Fortnite is a game almost as much about your cosmetic collection as it is the amount of wins you’ve accumulated. Imagine Fashion Souls, but far more colourful and with a lot less Eldritch. Having the rarest skins is seen as a matter of distinction amongst the younger members of the community with the theory being that the older your skins are, the better a player you are due to the experience you’ve had over the past two years with the game.
It’s a bit of a lightweight theory, to be sure. Though I’ve been playing on and off since day one and have skins that would probably fetch me an inordinate amount of money on eBay, I am a below average player who can’t edit smoothly or hit consistent shots. Yet, whenever I use an older skin during team-based modes, I often hear high-pitched excitement when I roll out (before promptly dying) with a Blue Squire.
That’s down to the fact that these skins are “one-of-a-kind”, skins that were only available for a limited time as part of an early Battle Pass when Fortnite had yet to really explode. There are really only a handful of skins that could be considered truly rare, one of them being one of the most sought after with it dropping for a short period during the BR’s infancy: Ghoul Trooper.
Released during Fortnitemares 2017, Ghoul Trooper really isn’t a fancy skin at all, it being Ramirez with zombie-like body paint. It’s a similar story to Skull Trooper, which was just Jonesy with a cheap Halloween costume on and a splash of face paint on. Whereas Skull Trooper returned for Fortnitemares 2018 to what must have been record sales, Ghoul Trooper remained absent, further increasing her rarity.
With Fortnitemares 2019 right around the corner and some Halloween skins already arriving in the Item Shop, a lot of speculation has been swirling around that Ghoul Trooper will be making a return, all borne from a probable hunch that many players have taken as gospel. It’s hard to track down where exactly the word of a Ghoul Trooper started swirling around, but content creators have been talking about it seemingly all month.
A re-release of the skin benefits them due to the Support A Creator system, which gives a percentage back to anyone who purchases Fortnite cosmetics while using an Epic-approved creator’s code. With there being double payouts this weekend (October 19th-20th), the assumption is that Epic are going to capitalise on it by re-introducing Ghoul Trooper, leading creators to heavily promote purchases.
This is a tonne of hype around what looks like to be a pretty menial thing to anyone outside of the Fortnite bubble, which has led to opportunism with giveaways for likes and follows on social media aplenty; a truly annoying blight for the game’s community.
If ghoul trooper comes out today I’ll Paypal someone so they can buy it.
Like & retweet with my notifications on
— Arif (@ItzArifff) October 19, 2019
Gifting Ghoul trooper to whichever reply has the least likes.
Giveaway ends when Halloween is on Friday the 13th https://t.co/qZ44ijQn22
— Jeremy (@JeremyCung) October 7, 2019
https://twitter.com/FNBRLeaks/status/1185764363711504384
So will Ghoul Trooper be making a return this year, or is it just a lot of hot air? Epic have been playing the long game with this skin, and with the new chapter bringing a lot of hype back to the game, they would be daft not to. Expect them to bring back Codename Elf in December, too.
The most interesting question of all, however, is not if Ghoul Trooper is returning, but why it matters if she does or doesn’t. Despite being a free game, players have poured a tonne of money into Fortnite over the last two years for cosmetics that don’t provide a true advantage, yet there could be grounds for investigating what kind of psychological advantage there is. Players, whether want to admit or not, want Ghoul Trooper because they feel owning it will embolden them.
If nothing else, it’s another marketing masterclass from Epic Games that plays the long game. Just like a bizarrely captivating black hole, all they’ve had to do is sit back and watch all eyes come to them.
MORE FORTNITE:
– Fortnite Season 11 Will Feature Bots (For Bots)
– My (Too) Long Quest For 100 Fortnite Wins
– Fortnite 2 #8211; Season 1 Battle Pass Skins #038; Styles: Fusion, Rippley, Remedy, Cameo More
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