Whether you love or hate it, you can’t deny that Fortnite is something special. The game has transformed from a run-of-the-mill Battle Royale into one of the Internet’s biggest digital third places, with countless game modes and collaborations available to overstimulate you.
This past weekend, Fortnite launched what is arguably its most ambitious crossover in years: an entire Battle Royale season themed around The Simpsons. For the majority of November, players can drop into a map modeled after the show’s town of Springfield, fighting to stay alive while taking in the near-endless number of Easter eggs and homages to the show’s decades of canon. The collaboration has even branched into the current season of The Simpsons itself, with weekly animated shorts debuting on Disney+, and a deliciously macabre couch gag in the newest episode.
There is, honestly, a lot to take in with this new Fortnite season… especially when it became so popular that it crashed the game’s servers upon launching on Saturday. But the more I play of this crossover with The Simpsons, the more I reach one conclusion: Marge Simpson is one of the best additions to Fortnite in a long time.
Every time a new Fortnite season launches — and with it, a new paid Battle Pass of cosmetics to earn — fans inevitably have strong feelings about which skin is the first to unlock. In a way, that character sets the tone for the season, because enthusiastic or relatively-new players are more likely to equip their skin in a game. Before this The Simpsons season launched, many were convinced that this honor would fall to Homer Simpson, which would lead to every lobby looking like the clone moment from “Boy Scoutz ‘n the Hood.” Instead, Marge is now the first character for Battle Pass users to unlock… and although the lobbies aren’t full of her (I think, in part, because a lot of players are playing around with how their existing library of 3D characters look in the cel-shaded season), she has set the tone in a glorious way.
I just think she’s neat!
For one thing, Marge’s presence in the Fortnite season comes with a slew of glorious accessories and cosmetic options. Before you unlock her, you can get an emote of her driving the family’s station wagon, a back bling of the bowling ball “gift” Homer gave her in “Life in the Fast Lane”, and even her vacuum-themed pickaxe from the show’s arcade game. You can also unlock alternate styles for her, either with her blue beehive of hair (which I’ll get to in a minute) down and ready for housework, or as a green witch from “Treehouse of Horror VIII.” The only thing that’s missing is an emote of her krumping.
Regardless of whatever you equip, nothing can prepare you for what it’s like to see Marge on the Fortnite Battle Royale map. Her gigantic hairdo should, in theory, make her one of the worst skins to play as. While it doesn’t appear to provide extra surface area to shoot at and damage, it still cartoonishly clips out of the roof of most of Fortnite‘s cars, and it’s impossible for her to inconspicuously hide behind anything.
And yet, that obviousness has turned Marge into the funniest skin to come across on The Simpsons map. I’ve encountered at least one of her in every single match of Fortnite that I’ve played this season, and nearly every person who has played as her has been… actually really good. The map also boasts two NPC versions of her (one in her witch form, and the other just chilling at the Simpsons’ house), who quickly become hostile enemies depending on what you do near them.
As a result, I have seen animation’s favorite matriarch, brandishing a cartoonish blank stare and pointing a gun at me, more often in the past few days than I have seen my immediate family. It’s the kind of visual that simultaneously provokes laughter and fear, turning the glimpse of her mountain of blue hair into an omen. It immediately raises the stakes: if I don’t defeat this Marge Simpson, my match will be over. My husband and I have both, in the heat of gameplay during this new season, exclaimed so many variations of “Oh no, it’s Marge!”, and the absurdity of that has yet to get old.
It’s so quintessentially Fortnite…
It’s the kind of absurdity that, honestly, is so reflective of what makes Fortnite great. I’ve been actively playing the game since 2018, and I can’t really describe what it’s been like to watch it evolve into such a pop culture potpourri. Some of the game’s collaborations have been baffling (or problematic), but the folding in of fictional franchises and pop superstars and new Christopher Nolan trailers has turned Fortnite into a collage of things we love… or things that younger players fall in love with because of the game. (Just ask Keanu Reeves.)
As someone who has watched and rewatched more episodes of The Simpsons than I can count, I’ve been tickled by the idea of those characters and that lore striking a chord with the Fortnite audience. Sure, you could cynically argue that the whole season is just a gigantic piece of subliminal marketing to draw viewers to the show or get butts in seats for the new movie in 2027… but if it still leads younger fans to fall in love with the characters and their world, I welcome it.
Marge is a character who has always been a little more badass than she might look on the surface, and the evolution of Julie Kavner’s decades-long performance as her has been a hot-button topic amongst Simpsons fans as of late. Regardless of whatever the future holds for Marge, and the show as a whole, I love that Fortnite is expanding her legacy in the silliest way possible.
(featured image: Epic Games)
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