If you’ve been anywhere near gaming Twitter over the weekend, you’ll have no doubt heard that The Last of Us‘ Ellie and Joel might joining Fortnite with a Naughty Dog collaboration. Well, it turns out that’s all been one big fat rumour and the Clickers are very much staying where they belong.
The rumours first gained traction when Nick Baker of the Xbox Era podcast shared a promotional image of the supposed collaboration on Saturday (July 23). Several other leakers posted about the collab – which would supposedly bring several of the game’s characters into Fortnite – only for the rumour to come to a screeching halt when Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann confirmed it was false. “Love me some Fortnite,” he tweets, “but there are no plans for this.”
Popular leaker ‘Shiina’, who Druckmann responded to, has since apologised for spreading the rumour, although they apparently had spoken to a dataminer with “perfect accuracy” who had told them they had heard about a possible The Last of Us collaboration “months ago”. This was corroborated by another two sources, although no proof was offered.
It was widely believed that the collaboration would tie in with the upcoming release of The Last of Us remake in September, which is set to make the PS5 version the most definitive edition yet, with overhauled visuals, haptic feedback, and new animations. However, that looks like that won’t be the case.
You can’t blame people for believing it, though. Naughty Dog has previously teamed up with Epic Games to add Uncharted’s Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan to the battle royale, so it’s not exactly out of the question. It’s just not happening right now.