Some Fortnite skins are rarer than others. The game’s collection of Star Wars skins certainly falls into that category. Until today, a set of Star Wars skins featuring characters from the New Trilogy ranked among the game’s rarest. Now, they’re back in the item shop for the first time in years.
Though Fortnite will spruik its near-complete set of Star Wars skins for the unofficial franchise holiday, it’s the Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, and the Sith Trooper skins that will be of most interest to returning players. These four skins have been out of the rotation longest, first appearing in 2019 around the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. For those who remember Fortnite in eras, this was the middle of Chapter Two, Season One.
They’ve only come out of the vault on one other occasion: May 4th, 2020. Another Star Wars Day drop. It’s been 729 days since these skins last appeared in the Fortnite Item Shop, an eternity in the game’s rotating roster of real-money skins.
The reason for their long-awaited return is difficult to divine. The most likely answer is that they’re prohibitively expensive to sell and to keep in the game on a long-term basis. Though Epic maintains a fruitful relationship with Disney, licensing anything to do with Star Wars must be an eyewateringly expensive endeavour. It may be that Epic simply couldn’t justify the cost of bringing them out of the vault for anything less than a genuinely special occasion.
Dataminers also speculate that changes to the way Fortnite builds its character rigs contributed to their absence as well. As the game evolved and Epic began to use it as a test-bed for upcoming Unreal Engine features, character rigs became more complex. Every change Epic made, data miners say, caused different groups of skins to fall into an unoptimised state. Until they could be fixed, it is assumed, the skins were considered unfit to re-release.
The other skins coming back to the store today: Rise of Skywalker character Zorii Bliss and the entire Book of Boba Fett series which includes Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, and Krrsantan.
The only Star Wars skin not coming out of the vault for Star Wars Day is The Mandalorian. Unlike the other Star Wars skins, The Mandalorian was part of a previous seasonal Battle Pass and is likely bound to different rules around rarity than the other skins.
It’ll cost you over a hundred Australian dollars if you want to pick up every last scrap of Star Wars content in the store today. Maybe just pick your favourite character, don’t go crazy.
Or do. It’s up to you. Unlike Vader, I’m not your father.
Also out of the vault: Star Wars weapons. From May 4 to May 18, the mythic Lightsaber melee weapons are back. One interesting change to the Lightsabers, which include hilts owned by famous characters, is that Rey’s Lightsaber has been swapped out for that of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Just last night, Fortnite teased a new Obi-Wan skin ahead of the premiere of the new character’s Disney+ TV series later this month.
Returning to Fortnite from a galaxy far, far away…
Lightsabers are back! Hop in now to use the Lightsaber item, complete limited time quests, and more!
Access more: https://t.co/WEl1rwsefc pic.twitter.com/GtKS2ikoAw
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) May 3, 2022
Rumours of a new Darth Vader skin also continue to do the rounds. If the character is to appear in Obi-Wan Kenobi as expected, it would make sense for Epic to build a skin around him.
There are also Star Wars Day quests to complete for cosmetic unlockables and you can also find Star Wars-themed blasters and weapons among the loot chest drops. You can also buy certain blasters from Imperial Stormtroopers found wandering the island.
The Star Wars event runs for two weeks, ending on May 18.
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