Fortnite now has an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo lady skin, for some reason
You can now buy a skin of Windwalker Echo
Last year, Epic Games revealed Unreal Engine 5 with a pretty Tomb Raider-style tech demo, showing a Lara Croft-like lady travelling through some ancient caves and ruins. At the time, I thought: "Ooh, wouldn't it be great to play through that!" Though sadly, it wasn't an actual game. However, you can become the cool, previously unnamed character in Fortnite now, because they've added a skin of her, named Windwalker Echo. Better than her sitting in limbo in a trailer forever, I suppose.
Fortnite has added loads of weird and wonderful skins over the last few years, yet I still find this one a bit stranger than the rest. Like, they've added football kits, loads of Disney crossovers, and even a peeled banana that has bones and not delicious banana fruit underneath. By comparison, adding an explorer-looking person like this is pretty tame.
But, I think it's odd partially because this Windwalker comes from a tech demo that I'd all but forgotten about. She has no crossover potential with other brands, she's not part of Fortnite's absolutely wild lore (yet), she's just a cool, obscure character, and I'm kinda surprised Epic did anything with her. To be honest, I'm quite happy she gets to live on in an actual video game.
The Windwalker Echo skin will set you back 800 V-bucks in Fortnite, which you'd need to spend a minimum of £7/$7 to get. According to PC Gamer, her arm tattoos light up when you open chests, similar to what happens when she uses her magic in the tech demo vid.
If you're interested in Wildwalker's roots, Unreal Engine 5 has been available in early access since May this year. It features better dynamic lighting, improved content streaming and loads more techy goodness you can read about here. Epic plan on releasing it in full early 2022.