This article contains spoilers for “One Battle After Another” and its Fortnite Islands.
The arrival of a brand new film from Paul Thomas Anderson is reason enough to go out and see it in whichever format it’s screening in. It also helps that “One Battle After Another” is, without question, one of the best movies of the year thus far. /Film’s Chris Evangelista says as much in his glowing review of the fiercely political action-comedy-thriller. The non-cinephile crowd, however, needs that extra push. As such, it resulted in a vague marketing campaign that partially reflects what the film is actually about. It turned out to be a pretty genius strategy in retrospect. With that in mind, I felt compelled to dig a little deeper into one of the marketing’s strangest gimmicks in the form of a Fortnite collaboration. The “One Battle After Another” Instagram page posted a brief video back in July that sees Fortnite mainstay Jonesey answering the phone not unlike Leonardo DiCaprio’s perpetually high Bob Ferguson. Months later, they unveiled skins of different characters you could play as, like Bob, pregnant Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), Deandra (Regina Hall), Sensei (Benecio del Toro), and Willa (Chase Infiniti).
The Fortnite collaboration came as a real surprise because PTA seems like the last person whose work would translate to online battle royale video games. But to my surprise, the folks at Epic Games did their homework in making it feel like you’re playing an alt-history version of the film’s events. Even Teyana Taylor looked like she was having fun with the Fortnite creative maps. By way of the YouTube channel French Seventy Vibez, I was able to see all of the different stages between the two islands: “Rise and Shine” and “La Revoluciòn.”
After you’ve seen One Battle After Another, you can play through some of its most famous locations
Right away, you’re dropped into the training grounds of the French 75 as they test your firing accuracy. From there, you’re off to the Redwoods forest in an effort to warn Bob of the incoming raid led by a cloaked cowboy figure named Mr. Sunshine. The antagonistic force of PTA’s film is the ruthless Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), but I suppose it wouldn’t be lucrative for Epic Games’ publicity to feature a white supremacist character. Down the line, however, you actually get to ride on Lockjaw’s Dynamite Dolphin 335 jet ski through the sewers to lead you to Sensei Sergio’s St. Carlos Ninja Academy.
You even get to explore Bob’s house, blast your way through Mr. Sunshine’s crew in the secret underground tunnel, and emulate the parkouring skateboard kids on the rooftops of Baktan Cross. It’s on the second island of “La Revoluciòn” where you’re given more of an expansive viewpoint of the Baktan Cross protest from the ground level. It’s there that you, along with Sensei, give chase to Mr. Sunshine’s convoy, which is carrying a captured Willa. The whole Fortnite expansion is worth it alone just for the few moments where you actually get to play on the famous wavy road in Chupacabra Hills from the film’s roaring climax.
Things take a detour when Willa escapes, and you’re tasked with taking out his crew in a national park, while Bob thanks you and chases after his daughter. Warner Bros. has taken part in plenty of partnerships with the open-world role-playing game with its DC properties and even movies like “Sinners” earlier in the year, but this feels wholly unique as a kind of side narrative that feels more rewarding after you’ve seen the film.
There are so many clever easter eggs pertaining to Paul Thomas Anderson’s filmography
This is all coming from someone whose familiarity with Fortnite derived from watching other people play it, but from an outside perspective, the “One Battle After Another” collab comes across as a surprisingly well-thought-out batch of mini-games that makes it feel like you’re in the movie. If you weren’t already incentivized to play an abridged version of the film, these islands are loaded with really clever easter eggs of other PTA movies. Most of the ones I was able to discover could be found in the “La Revoluciòn” island, such as the “Boogie Nights” star on a rooftop, a “Magnolia” Blvd street sign, an Exodus 8:2 license plate on Sensei’s car, and even the harmonium from “Punch-Drunk Love” on the side of the road. There’s also a record shop named “Licorice Pie” in reference to the 2021 Best Picture nominee “Licorice Pizza,” whose title is owned by Universal Pictures. I’m willing to bet there’s even more in plain sight that I somehow missed.
It got me thinking: what would other video games based on PTA’s filmography even look like? I’d be all for a survival horror game based on the Alfred Molina scene from “Boogie Nights,” a leisurely Hideo Kojima-based open worlder following Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc rambling throughout Los Angeles in “Inherent Vice,” and a “Punch-Drunk Love” arcade side scroller where you punch through all of Mattress Man’s auditor goons to get to your date on time. A bonus for the board game enthusiasts would be a Catan-based game for “There Will Be Blood” in which you vie for oil supremacy.
“One Battle After Another” is now playing in theaters nationwide.
