Overwatch, Which Spent Years Imitating Fortnite, Is About To Be In Fortnite

After taking player feedback to heart, adding well-received new features, and dropping the 2 from its name, Overwatch has experienced something of a renaissance in 2026. Whether or not it will last is anyone’s guess in the Jetpack-Cat-eat-Jetpack-Cat world of live service games, but for now, at least, Blizzard seems back on track. That’s not to say the game has shed all the habits it picked up while lost in the desert, though. Crossovers run rampant, and now finally, they’re coming full circle.

The original Overwatch wilted in the shadow of Fortnite's battle royale mode—which blew up a couple years after Overwatch’s release, just as the latter began to wind down its update schedule in favor of the still-cooking Overwatch 2—so it made an oddly poetic sort of sense (derogatory) when Overwatch 2 went crossover crazy beginning in 2023. The game’s once-admirably original universe became a canvas for brands like Transformers, GI Joe, numerous anime, and Porsche. The poem is now complete, with Overwatch set to appear in gaming’s own Ready Player One (a film that Overwatch’s Tracer also cameoed in).

According to Game Informer, OW OGs D.Va, Genji, Tracer, and Mercy will join Fortnite on May 14, as will landmarks based on several maps: Hanamura, Busan Drum Pavilion, King's Row, and Watchpoints. Overwatch-themed weapons will also appear in Fortnite’s loot pool, including Tracer’s pistols, which—in a vaguely interesting twist—allow you to play in first-person and blink around the map at dazzling speeds.

For people who still, to this day, feel a flutter in their hearts at the idea of banging action figures from two different cartoons together, I’m sure this will be a blast. There is evidence to suggest, however, that people are beginning to burn out on crossovers—and perhaps just Fortnite’s whole thing in general. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney cited a “downturn in Fortnite engagement” when he announced mass layoffs earlier this year. The company that owns Overwatch, Microsoft, isn’t having an entirely easy time of it either, with Xbox struggling to win back player trust and the general manager of Microsoft Israel departing after the company reportedly conducted an investigation into potential unethical use of its Azure cloud tech.

But hey, now Genji can have an ultimate ninja showdown with Naruto or whatever. What a time to be alive.