Over two months ago, /u/tfoust10 made a post on the /r/FortNiteBR subreddit that accumulated over 40,000 upvotes and one Reddit gold gift. It was a picture of a note his eight-year-old son wrote, pleading with Epic Games to add a skin to the game called the Chicken Trooper. Two days later, the same user followed it up with a picture of his son holding a hand-drawn concept image of what the Chicken Trooper could look like, including a backbling and pickaxe. /u/Etsyturtle2 took the suggestion even further and created an incredible design for the Chicken Trooper with a glider, emote and more.
This all happened in September. It’s now November and it seems like the Chicken Trooper is almost here. If you climb the Lonely Lodge watchtower in-game, you’ll see chicken feathers and cooked chicken drumsticks scattered on the floor. Could this be the Chicken Trooper’s hideout?
In the v6.30 patch that released last week, dataminers also delved into the game files and found evidence of the same skin designed by /u/Etsyturtle2. There’s the Flappy Flyer which looks identical to the glider in the concept art, along with the Scrambler pickaxe which is the same as the Egg Whisk Axe drawn. Perhaps the most telling of all is the actual skin design (minus the head) which features bird feet, tight red leggings and a very similar chest.
Finally, /u/Etsyturtle2 has confirmed in the comments of his Reddit post that Epic contacted him directly about the skin. “Oh, yeah. The skin is coming,” he wrote in one comment. He then confirmed that Epic reached out to him and that it will be called the Tender Defender. /u/tfoust10, the user whose son designed the original skin has since posted to the subreddit asking about the best ways to tell his son when the skin gets added.
A wholesome, heartwarming story for everyone involved. Epic themselves haven’t confirmed the skin but we’re expecting to see it released on the store before the season has finished. In other Fortnite news, the v6.30 content update came out today and introduced the Wild West LTM and Dynamite, but the latter has already been disabled!
