Oh, the Balenciaga Fortnite skins are back! It’s taken three years, but they have finally arrived. The Fortnite skins are back! Fortnite’s biggest leaker, HYPEX, tweeted about the Balenciaga skins, making them available on Fortnite as well as leaving a purchase link. He also mentioned that you can support him with his creator code, which is actually pretty nice.
But the replies, man. People immediately point out that the emote for the original set is still not back, like it’s the first thing they notice. There’s close to a dozen comments saying “Where is the emote?” and one person said “Lowk still flexing the emote,” which means that thing is probably really rare now. Fortnite has to have some sort of ongoing conflict to keep collectors and strippers fighting over something.
Meanwhile, the rest of it… Balenciaga, yes. “The pedo company,” as one user put it, with a linked article. The rest of the thread devolves into their old controversies with child imagery, “balenciaga having kids wear leather and show it off as fashioning show kids as sex symbols,” and it all gets very serious very fast. But then other players are just… buying the skins? One person said “Good that I bought the emote!! Now I’m buying the skins,” so apparently not everyone is refusing to participate in the controversy.
What is most notable is what it tells us about Fortnite’s collaboration strategy. After three years, they bring back a controversial brand, and at the same time, people are already asking for other brands to be brought back. There are so many comments, “hopefully the ralph lauren skins come back,” “we wanted polo,” and even, “we know they only care about money, Travis Scott coming!” Like the community is okay with these random old collaborations coming back.
There’s also the old-school flex culture going on. There are so many comments like “Had it og…,” “I had the emote og💔🥀,” and “But I had it OG🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.” Fortnite’s one of the few games where people genuinely care about the digital rarity of items, which is fascinating for the gaming industry because digital rarity is essentially a status symbol in Fortnite, and that is lucrative for the company.
The pricing is another thing—some people pointed out it’s “unfair” that these are returning, but another user clapped back with “What is unfair about it? It’s a regular shop item.” As far as I’m aware, that’s true. Epic never said these would be one-time only items. But, man, marketers and gamers sure know how to get on people for their exclusive digital clothes.
What is missing with this return? The emote called “The Look” from the original set is missing. One user seems to have gotten a response, in what seemed to be an AI account, in German explaining the emote is not included in the return but maybe in the future. So maybe Epic is saving parts of the set for later? That would be such an Epic move.
The timing does matter. Having a collab missing for three years is a significant amount of time. I wonder if Epic time forgot waiting for the Balenciaga controversy to settle before returning them. And with collabs coming back now, it opens the platform to other, perhaps controversial collabs to return as well. I guess everyone is asking for Travis Scott, and this has to be the reason people are choosing him next, because if it’s because of the Astroworld tragedy, that would be an even stranger choice.
But as we know, Fortnite is a business, and collaborations are profitable. Regardless of the community response or controversies, people will still purchase these digital fashion items. This time we can clearly see the divide, and it’s those who concern themselves with real-world issues and those searching for the cool skins.
The irony of this is while the discussion about child imagery and corporate ethics are serious, some gamer says “Ya’ll up in arms more than Chun Li 🤣,” which is a little too casual considering the ongoing debate, but a spot-on metaphor on the other hand. Gamers really do get riled up over their virtual belongings.
So yes, Balenciaga has returned to Fortnite after the three years’ hiatus, that hot topic surrounding the missing emote, and it’s still probably flying off the shelves. It’s a typical day for Balenciaga in Fortnite’s item shop; the same cycle plays on. Players never stop having things to say as new items are released and old ones are reintroduced.
Guess odds are against Fortnite dropping something next week, like the Marvel collection, or maybe something else. With Fortnite, the shop is always a mystery, making waiting for a drop much more exciting.
