Naughty Dog denies plans to crossover Last of Us with Fortnite

Fortnite and Naughty Dog are not planning a crossover; yet.

One could argue that as far as pure, single-player video game action goes, few games are on the level of Naughty Dog’s Last of Us franchise. That series is one of the biggest in the world and has really only produced two games in the span of a decade. Yet, Last of Us is huge. Even if the second game pissed off everyone. So if Fortnite was going to partner up with the best single-player franchise, Last of Us would be the likeliest candidate.

So of course rumors started popping up that the two-game brand was in fact going to do some sort of crossover. Likely bringing Joel and Ellie to the game in some form or another. Ellie’s sequel character model may be big enough to fit in alongside other Fortnite characters, and the Joel model is certainly ideal.

Yet, there are reasons that rumors are just rumors. According to Naughty Dog co-president, Neil Druckmann, the Fortnite and Last of Us franchises are not crossing over.

Fortnite and Last of Us probably shouldn’t crossover

You might be surprised to hear that both Fortnite and Last of Us were actually two games cut from the same cloth. Fortnite started off as a zombie survival game, and Last of Us took that idea and ran with it, replacing plant monsters with zombies.

So there was a time when both brands would’ve made sense to partner up. Yet, the tone of each game is a bit different right now, but that’s not the biggest reason why. No, there are two big reasons why.

Firstly, while the second game was a technical marvel, the storyline and plot decisions ruined the game for many players.

Secondly, and more importantly, with Last of Us dropping their television series soon enough, the last thing they want is to have even more added pressure to turn a video game franchise into a successful series. It’s failed so many times before and with the video game being an interactive story experience already, there’s really no way the series can capture the essence of the game.

Adding even more hype is just going to make things harder to pull off. After the series debuts, sure, then that seems more logical.