It's crazy to think that I use only third-party controllers these days, and it's not hard to see why.

I played Hi Fi Rush but not Soulstice.  Just the name alone probably would have made me dismiss it but willing to give it a try if its like DMC.

Can we really call that Fortnite-ification when games have done this type of thing for a long time.  Adding guess characters within games isn't something Fortnite started.

True, but it popularized it to the nth degree.  I still remember Soul Caliber II including Link with Gamecube along with Darth Vader and Yoda on Playstation and Xbox.  There have been scores of mainstream media cross-pollinations before, but Fortnite feels like the first one to make that central to its DNA *as* an IP (in my view).  Hell, some of its newer mechanics were literally reserved until the next new property - Marvel, Star Wars, etc. - were announced for its latest update.  

It feels like the first to fully capture Ready Player One's deluge of nerd cameos as central to the plot.

Yeah pretty much which has now led to other IPs to have similar kinds of crossovers. Most notably CoD, but Rocket League, Destiny, and Rainbow Six: Siege are some examples.

Thankfully Battlefield is staying away from that kind of cross promotion......for now.

Pfft, Batman, Spider-Man,Rambo,Terminator AND Godzilla are in the same game together on SEGA Genesis. Shinobi. Fortnite ain't got shit on Shinobi. :P

I think it feels more prevalent with Fortnite because it's one of those forever games and thus since it's free to play its whole model is trying to sell character skins cosmetics and season passes.

The GaaS side of online gaming is another major component, for sure.  Keeping with the Ready Player One example: imagine if a later edition came out that incorporated Fidget Spinners as a weapon or other recent cultural phenomena alongside all of the 80s nostalgia.  At this stage, anything less than a "hard M-rated" series could be eligible for the Fortnite spotlight. 

My son would be all over that Fidget Spinner as  a weapon in Fortnite so yeah, I totally agree that these GaaS games going that route seems about right.  Lately we have been seeing a lot of crossovers in these games even with the new Helldivers 2 and Halo.  I just read that Overwatch 2 is getting a whole crossover event from Persona not just the Joker addition.  I am sure this isn't going to be the first of these type of additions.  Now if they got Street Fighter or Tekken characters and that actually might get me to bite. 

Wait, what? I knew the textures and resolution would be watered down, but the last thing I was expecting was Black Myth: Wukong running at a surprisingly consistent 60fps on Series S. I'm sure more epic set pieces drop the framerate, but this is quite shocking to see.