Ah-ha, it's here: "the limit."
Find your greatest adventure.
As we pointed out before, all the characters in Hasbro's initial Fortnite releases were related to the Ghost/Shadow conflict from Chapter 2 Season 2: she may not have appeared in the trailer, but Skye was definitely one of Midas' agents, acting as the boss for The Shark (not that one), which was originally just a fancy mansion on an oddly-shaped island, but was later converted into a prison. Fun fact: The Shark, as a POI, is lifted whole cloth from another Epic Games property, Spyjinx. That game has yet to make it out of beta, but The Shark has come and gone in Fortnite.
Although she was canonically the last member standing of the original Ghost faction (The Shark was the only Ghost base that never fell to Shadow control), there isn't much lore about Skye. From her personal quarters at The Agency, we know she likes books and boardgames, prefers fantasy to sci-fi, and doesn't make her bed. Sounds like our kind of girl!
Skye dresses pretty casually for a secret agent super spy trapped on an island full of wanton killers: no armor, no stealth gear,
just normal winter boots, black jeans, a salmon-colored sweater tied around her waist, a yellow shirt, blue jean jacket with fur trim on the collar, and fingerless gloves. Like, this isn't something that would be "easy" to cosplay, it's something you could cosplay without even realizing it just by getting dressed in the morning. A pouch of some sort hangs from the right side of her belt, and she has pins on her jacket and backpack strap. She keeps a white camera hanging from a red cord around her neck, though that's a separate piece and could technically count as an accessory. She tops it all off with a character beanie, with a pink body and yellow wings and eyes. Basically, she looks like if Alison Brie played a character voiced by Kristen Schaal. Does that make sense?
Hasbro knows what it's doing when it comes to articulation, so the Fortnite Victory Royale Series is definitely fun to play with. Skye has swivel/hinge rocker ankles, swivel boots, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a balljointed waist and chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and balljoints at the top and bottom of the neck. Perfect for running from the storm, mantling to the roofs of buildings for a better angle of attack, or jumping around enthusiastically while she's absorbed in whatever videogame she's currently playing.
Other than the camera, which she won't be taking off anyway, her accessories include a Harvesting Toool, Back Bling, and weapon that are all associated with her. First, we've got the Epic Swords of Wonder (originally called the "Legendary Sword of Legends," until they changed it so there was no confusion about its actual rarity level in the game), a pair of translucent blue Legend of Zelda-ish swords
with silver and brown handles; you'll notice that along with the name change, the tool went from "sword" to "swords" for some reason. Next is the Adventure Pack, a brown backpack with a small shield hanging from it, several more pins, a water bottle, and a pocket for her phone; there's also a slot where one of the Epic Swords can be stowed, because this Back Bling also has Back Flair (meaning it can change appearance based on what you have equipped - use both the bag and the swords together, and the Harvesting Tool will show up there when you're using some other weapon, and disappear when you're chopping down a wall); only one of the swords will fit at a time, because apparently the change to dual blades happened very soon before release. Finally, there's the Grappler, which was one of the weapons the Boss version of Skye would drop when you defeated her; when Jazwares did that same weapon, theirs could actually fire its plunger projectile; guess it's still too early for Hasbro to attempt that.
We're still not done yet, because this is a deluxe release.
The set also includes Ollie, Skye's... best friend? Pet? Glider? Imaginary halucination? Something. She can definitely use him as a glider to get to the ground, because that is a thing that undenably happens; it's just that sometimes she seems to see him when no one else can.
Ollie is a big pink ball of... feathers? Maybe? Or fluff? Probably not fur, because it's rounded rather than pointy. He has big yellow fairy wings, and a tail, and two thick, blunted horns on top of his head. If that sounds familiar, it's pretty much the same as Skye's hat: in fact, in the game, she deploys her glider by removing her hat and throwing it into the air above her, where it turns into Ollie. Where's our alternate bare head, Hasbro?
Ollie's tummy is baby blue, contrasting with
the salmon on the rest of him, and there's a large golden star under there, as well. Hasbro was decent enough to include a socket for a balljoint so he'll actually be able to fly, but they didn't include a stand with this set. The socket seems to be the same size as the ones used for various Marvel and Star Wars characters, so you could use those if you have one handy, but none of them will be tall enough to let Skye hang from the handles underneath him. Let's hope Hasbro has plans to make a tall fight stand at some point.
Until then, you can still use him as transportation. One of Skye's built-in emotes ("Ollie Bounce") sees her again take her hat off, but this time throw it between her legs, where she starts riding Ollie's back like a big bouncy ball. And that's a Traversal emote, meaning you can actually move around while you're doing that. The toy has a little trouble with this, because of her shirt hanging down below her butt, but it's an option. And would make the display stands useful!
Skye is a fun, colorful character, even if you don't know the game. She could be a classmate of Kamala Khan, a friend of Barbara Gordon, or even just a random civilian witnessing a battle. Another winner!
-- 04/15/22
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