Fortnite's latest character reveal is a fresh clue to Chapter 4's intriguing timey-wimey story
Robot wars.
For the past three seasons in Fortnite, players have aided chirpy AI voice AMIE as part of the game's meandering ongoing storyline.
This week, a fresh set of narrative quests saw AMIE finally bid farewell to players - for the time being, at least - as she sets off in search of her creator, now installed in a fresh robot body.
While this storyline has been ongoing for a while, the identity of the robot body AMIE constructs has come as something of a surprise. It's a robot body that long-time Fortnite fans are very familiar with, as it was a playable character included in the game's Chapter 1 Season 6 battle pass back in 2018.
The twist - that we're seeing something already established in Fortnite lore being created this season - is another nod to the game's current main storyline, which seems to place the game's current map and ongoing events as a prequel to everything seen so far.
This season's final battle pass character is The Ageless, an early version of Geno, the overall villain of Fortnite's militaristic Imagined Order faction. While Fortnite has only hinted at The Ageless's true identity in-game, the battle royale's latest series of canon comic books unmasks Geno for real - and he and The Ageless are absolutely versions of the same character.
Fortnite seems to be using its newly-constructed Chapter 4 map and medieval theming to unveil the story of Geno and the Imagined Order's origins. Its latest reveal of AMIE constructing a robot body we already knew about is another sign we're seeing parts of Fortnite's established story out of order.
Of course, it's possible AMIE simply copied the existing robot body's design - but there are various hints this is not the case, including the icy location and design of the labs the robot was associated with back in 2018, and even its original name - AIM - as a shortened form of AMIE. It makes me wonder how long Fortnite had this body waiting as AMIE's fate, and whether this was all planned from the off.
Here, AMIE plans to use the Island's newly-constructed rift gate to leave Fortnite's main reality and search elsewhere for her creator, The Scientist, whose whereabouts are unknown. When we saw AIM in Season 6, it was also searching for something - and now we may know what, or rather who, that was.
Will AMIE and the Scientist - and indeed, the rest of the Seven - return someday? It seems unlikely Fortnite is done with its big hero faction forever, even if for now it has other stories to tell. And even if not, and that is it for AMIE, it's a smart conclusion that answers a much older mystery at the same time.