Fortnite gifting might be landing next week

There is no denying that Fortnite has become huge. Too huge for even Google to fight. It has also become one of the biggest money grabs when it comes to in-game purchases, even when such microtransactions are only for more cosmetic items. What else can Epic Games do to bolster sales then? Why let players gift such items around, of course, while still letting Epic Games profit from. That will be through an not so unexpected Gifting system that may or may not arrive next week.

You'd expect something like this to have been available for a while but, then again, Fortnite is a relatively young game. Plus, given the whole brouhaha over microtransactions and loot boxes, Epic Games might have opted to let things simmer down a bit before making bigger strides towards evolving the in-game economy.

The wait might be over soon. A leak from a certain @The1Jaren on Twitter revealed that gifting is already in the game, just not in a fully available and working way. It appears as a very visible option beneath the Purchase button.

According to the short video above, it will take days before the gift to arrive at the sender. Mostly because that will be when the system goes live for everyone. If that's the case, Fortnite might flip the switch October 21. How the system will work and what checks Epic has in place to prevent abuse, we'll probably know by then.

Eurogamer notes that Jaren didn't stop at Gifting to explore the "glitched" game that let him see Gifting before anyone else did. The player ominously says that the game is seriously broken but holds off on disclosing what he discovered to the public.