Hollow Knight Sneaks Into Fortnite: Fortnitemares 2026 Kicks Off With a Parade of Horror

Epic Games has fired the starting gun on Fortnitemares 2026, its big Halloween event, and it does so with a lineup of collaborations that mixes horror icons with a guest almost nobody saw coming: Hollow Knight. As reported by Vandal, the event is already underway with Five Nights at Freddy's as the first card on the table, and new arrivals will keep landing throughout October, including Slender Man, Freddy Krueger and Predator.

The news matters for two reasons. The first is that Fortnite has spent years turning Halloween into a fixed date on the battle royale calendar, and every edition works as a barometer of which licenses carry cultural weight at that moment. The second is that an indie game like Team Cherry's sharing a bill with film franchises and Universal Studios says a lot about how far the Knight has come, and also about Epic's ambition to keep its community engaged in the final stretch of the year.

What you need to know

• The event has already started and opens with Five Nights at Freddy's content.
• Hollow Knight appears in the trailer, but the Knight arrives as a Sidekick, not as a standard playable skin.
• Epic has not confirmed a date or price for the Hollow Knight content, at least for now.
• October is packed: Slender Man, Freddy Krueger, Predator: Badlands, Hazbin Hotel, Black Clover, 99 Nights in the Forest, The Purge, Obsession and Beetlejuice are also on the list.
• Universal Studios chips in with elements tied to Halloween Horror Nights.

A Knight you don't play, but who tags along

For Hollow Knight fans the distinction matters, and it's best not to be misled by the headline. As Vandal reports, Team Cherry's game showed up in the event's new trailer with the Knight in Sidekick form. That means you won't be able to play as him on the island: he'll be a companion who follows you around and decorates your loadout, not the character you land and fight with. It's a stylistic nod rather than a change to how you play.

On top of that, Epic still hasn't said when it will be available or how much it will cost. It's standard practice for the company: show the flashiest piece in the trailer, let the conversation grow and hold back the details to drip-feed them over the month. For those hoping for a full skin, the Sidekick format may be a bit of a letdown. For cosmetic collectors, on the other hand, it's exactly the kind of rare item that later becomes a must-have.

An October turned into a shopping mall of horror

The Fortnitemares 2026 guest list is especially long and varied. There's classic film horror with Freddy Krueger, The Purge, Beetlejuice and Predator: Badlands; there's textbook creepypasta with Slender Man; there's adult animation with Hazbin Hotel; there's anime with Black Clover; and there are recent phenomena like 99 Nights in the Forest and Obsession. Rounding out the package, the collaboration with Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights connects the event with the theme park most associated with this time of year.

What changes for the average player is the pace. Instead of one big launch and a month of calm, Epic spreads the arrivals across October, so there's always a reason to open the shop again or check out the new trailer. It's a strategy designed to keep retention high right when other releases are competing for the community's free time.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz newsroom we see it with a mix of excitement and skepticism. The excitement is genuine: Hollow Knight entering Fortnite is a symbolic win for independent development and for a community that has championed that game for years. The skepticism comes from the format. Reducing the Knight to a Sidekick that follows you around the map feels like half a collaboration, a piece designed more to make the trailer generate headlines than to let fans feel they're playing as their character. And announcing it without a date or price, even if it's house custom, leaves the community speculating instead of informed.

For competitive players, the event itself is almost irrelevant performance-wise: cosmetics don't win matches. What does worry us every Halloween is the theme coming with changes to the island or temporary elements that shake up the meta mid-season. The source doesn't mention anything like that, so for now there's no cause for alarm, but our advice is the same as always: stick to your practice routine and don't let the noise of new content distract you from the goal.

For content creators, on the other hand, October is gold. A list of licenses this long means reaction videos, shop-opening videos, skin comparisons and debates about which collaboration turned out best. If you have a channel or stream, this is the month to plan your schedule and use every new arrival as a hook. We only ask one thing: don't sell the Hollow Knight Sidekick as if it were a playable skin, because the community will notice and trust is lost fast.

What do you think?

Hollow Knight as a Sidekick, Freddy Krueger, Predator, Slender Man and even Universal Studios in a single event: Fortnite is once again betting on quantity for Halloween. We want to know how you see it from your perspective as a player or creator. Is it enough that the Knight only arrives as a companion, or do you think Epic fell short with such a beloved license? Tell us in the team chat or on our Discord.