Fortnite Adds Master Chief, The Walking Dead Heroes Coming Soon

Following the recent launch of Season 5, Epic Games has delivered an update on what's next for Fortnite: Battle Royale during the 2020 Game Awards. Hot off the heels of a God of War cameo, Epic revealed another gaming icon appearing in the game: Master Chief. He wasn't alone, either, as some big-name characters from one of the biggest shows on television will be coming, too.

Master Chief in Fortnite

Master Chief actually went live on the servers just ahead of the official Game Awards announcement. He's available now in the item shop. Chief brings his own signature pickaxe, which is modeled after a Gravity Hammer, and a Pelican carrier glider, along with a holographic Elite skull. A miniaturized Warthog is also available to drive. It looks closer to the Mongoose vehicle from the main Halo series.

Xbox Series X|S players unlock a special matte black skin for Master Chief, too. This is similar to the approach taken when God of War's Kratos came to the game. In that version, you have to play the game on PS5 in order to unlock an alternate version of the character. Once you have unlocked it, you should then be able to use it regardless of the console you play on. If you sign into a friend's Xbox to unlock it, this could be a little workaround.

Donald Mustard then appeared on the show to announce the inclusion, saying that this fits into the theme of "hunters" helping to track down villains. A brief, relatively goofy trailer showed Master Chief himself emerging from a freezer.

Mustard said he's "thrilled" that Master Chief will be joining the ever-growing cast of characters, and teased more Halo coming to Fortnite as well. That was apparently a reference to a piece of machinima from Red vs Blue, in which the crew meets Ninja. That was to announce the addition of Blood Gulch/Coagulation to Fortnite's Creative mode.

If you're on Xbox One, you can only to get the Blood Gulch map by using a code workaround. However, Epic Games is working to address this.

Walking Dead Crossover

Finally, the segment announced a Walking Dead crossover, bringing the popular characters Daryl Dixon and Michonne. That teaser was rather brief, but we saw a glimpse of the pair as rendered in Fortnite's exaggerated cartoon style. These two characters are from the Walking Dead TV show (Michonne also appears in the comics, but Daryl does not).

Ahead of The Game Awards, host Geoff Keighley teased some kind of Fortnite news by posting a picture of a bag that he said belonged to Agent Jones. That was seemingly a reference to Jonesy, the mascot character for Fortnite who has popped up in some of the meta, "real world" glimpses we've gotten as part of some of the game's major events this year. Most recently, he was seen entering the world of Fortnite to help deal with the crisis involving the Zero Point, which Galactus attempted to consume at the end of last season.