The Paradigm. One of the most story relevant characters. She was a huge part of the Chapter 3 storyline that led into Chapter 4, she’s a part of The Seven, who’ve had a huge impact on the game’s narrative as a whole, and… She’s a skin you can’t get… And we’re not even talking about her Battle Pass reskin from Chapter 3. Nope, somehow that version is more commonly owned by at least 3 times over than the Item Shop version, ya know the one that can actually come back at anytime Epic Games decides to?
Now the argument I always hear is that Epic “can’t” bring back The Paradigm skin because it was a “limited time” and an “exclusive” skin. As I’m sure most people are aware, this already happened. There was one instance in 2024 when this skin came back to the Item Shop for about 1 hour before it was instantly removed from the shop. It was a big deal, Donald Mustard even reacted on Twitter to Epic’s initial response of revoking The Paradigm from new buyers with a face palm emoji, indicating that making this skin a true exclusive was a bad idea. So as Epic seems to do when these things happen they ultimately apologized for the bug, and decided to refund everyone who bought The Paradigm and gave the original owners an actual exclusive edit style that the new owners of the skin wouldn’t be able to access. I want to repeat the language that Epic themselves gave through Twitter on October 11th 2019 when the skin released, “Her allegiance is unknown.The Paradigm Outfit is available in the Item Shop now!” Interestingly no mention here of the skin being exclusive until the next day, “Unknown allegiance. Grab The Paradigm Outfit, Welcome! Emote and Go home! Emote in the Item Shop now. These exclusive items are only available for a limited time.” However, the ingame news tab DOES mention how The Paradigm is time limited when the skin debuted on October 11th, “The new limited-time Paradigm Outfit is available now!”
So before we get to The Paradigm I think it’s important to gain some context and look back at the cosmetic that kicked off this whole "exclusive" thing, which is the Mako Glider. Now most players today were definitely not around for this (myself included) but initially this glider was a part of the Season 1 cosmetics. It wasn’t a part of the season shop, no it was gained through what we would classify today as either a battle pass reward, or a challenge. You had to get to level 25, now by today’s standards that sounds pretty simple, but back in Season 1 this was apparently very difficult due to how few sources there were for XP. Flash forward to Season 2 and Epic either intentionally or accidentally ads the Mako glider to the Item Shop, and players weren’t happy about this. Much like The Paradigm years later, Epic removed the glider very quickly from the shop, and asked players on Reddit how they felt about keeping past cosmetics exclusive and most players agreed they should stay exclusive which is why you haven’t seen any of the season 1 items or items gained through challenges return**** Eagle eye readers and Fortnite cosmetic history aficionado’s will notice how many asterik’s I’ve included after that statement, and will know how absolutely untrue that is.
I’m sure you’re all aware of the Renegade Raider (RR) and Aerial Assault Trooper (ATT) skins. These were highly popular rare skins since they were only available during Season 1 where most players didn’t play the game, and if they did they likely didn’t spend any money on it. RR and AAT weren’t initially billed as “exclusive” or “limited time” when they were released. However due to the aforementioned Mako glider incident Epic games decided to have a select few Season 1 items stay in Season 1 only and not return later, this led players into believing a community legend that these skins and associated comets were truly exclusive and would never be seen again. That is until they were brought back, (more on that later)
Now this wasn’t the first time Season 1 cosmetics came back either; Epic brought back the Skull and Ghoul Trooper skins in CH2 S1. Now Epic never advertised these skins as “exclusive” or “limited time” they just didn’t return in Season 6 for that Fortnitemares event and because they were released in Season 1 people assumed it was exactly like the RR or AAT skins. However when these Halloween skins returned to the Item Shop; Epic apologized to the original owners and gave them an exclusive edit style. Which was the first time this happened. Since then Skull Trooper and Ghoul Trooper have gone on to have 144 and 94 occurrences respectively in the Item Shop as of the time of this writing.
When CH6 S1 launched Epic brought back the Season 1 OG island via the then new OG mode, and to recreate the feeling that this really was a recreation of OG season 1 Epic brought back the infamous Renegade Raider and Ariel Assault Trooper skins into the item shop, along with the same XP requirements to buy the associated gliders, pickaxes and skins as you needed in the original Season 1. Now much like all the other skins we’ve discussed these were also not previously advertised as “limited time” and “exclusive”, but Epic had retroactively made them exclusive skins, and just like The Paradigm and the Halloween skins; the original owners of Renegade Raider and Assault Trooper skins got new exclusive edit styles that were the exact same color scheme as the exclusive Paradigm edit style. Not only that but these skins stayed in the shop for over a month, being in the shop from Dec 20th to Jan 31st.
Here’s the kicker if you ask me. Like we stated earlier bringing back the RR and AAT skins was a huge deal, Epic retroactively made these skins exclusive and brought them back anyway as a part of a throwback to re-create the feel of the original Season 1. Fast forward to CH 7 S1 and the OG mode is now in Season 7, and for some reason Epic brings back the RR and AAT skins again for a second year in a row for the same exact time period. Dec 20th to Jan 31st. These skins weren’t re-released during the original Season 7, so why now? Now these previously “exclusive” “limited time” skins have had - as of the time of this writing - 85 occurrences in the Item Shop. That’s more than most skins in the game and completely negates these being rare skins anymore.
Now let me be clear. I have no problem with bringing back “rare” skins -if the other paragraphs weren’t already an indication- I have some “rare” licensed skins like Kratos, and Snake Eyes and previously rare licensed skins like Street Fighter, Naruto, and Arcane League of Legends. Now when Epic brought those aforementioned skins back into the item shop earlier this year alongside the RR and AAT skins I was happy. I’d had these skins for years so while part of me was sad that they were less rare I was ultimately glad that players that either started in CH4 or even CH6 finally had a chance to get these colab skins that came out WAAAAY before these players even had a chance to get them. And these were licensed skins, not Epic owned properties. So why are skins like The Paradigm so hard to come back then?
My last piece of evidence on exclusivity being a bad excuse is a more recent one. CH 7 S2. Great season imo, the last week of that season Epic decided to have a community day, tons of free items, and more importantly for this discussion; rare skins in the Item Shop. I’m of course referring to Epic finally releasing Brilliant Bomber, and the then believed EXCLUSIVE Indigo Kuno. Now Brilliant was up to that point a 99% unreleased skin. There were ways to have the skin legitimately if you knew someone who developed the game at Epic, or through a Discord bot in 2019. but otherwise for most practical purposes it was unreleased. It was speculated to be a part of a yearly subscription model that Epic dumped in favor of the monthly Crew subscription, so because the yearly model was never released it would’ve been a part of an “exclusive” model, but was then sold in the item shop. The second, Indigo Kuno is a bit more relevant for this discussion. Before community day you HAD to play in a tournament that lasted a couple hours in December of 2020 and ONLY on PlayStation AND you had to rank high enough in said tournament to qualify to get the skin. So while this was a released skin out of the millions of players it was estimated that around 6000 or less actually had this skin or around 0.006 of the player base if said player base was 1 million players. So I think it would be safe to categorize Indigo Kuno as an exclusive skin. AND YET both of these skins were released in the Item Shop for sale for two total occurrences. Showing how Epic can release skins in the Item Shop that are “exclusive”
So clearly Epic has already presented precedence for bringing back “exclusive” and “limited time” skins by re-defining what those terms mean. If skins like RR or Indigo Kuno were truly “exclusive” then we would’ve never seen these skins in the shop ever again. if a skin is “time limited” it doesn’t really mean anything if you ask me. Technically all skins in the game are “time-limited” since that’s how the item shop functions, that could be stretched to define the means by which all skins in this game are acquired, any amount of time is technically limited. So bringing back a “limited time” skin for a short period of time would still be “time limited”
So finally we’re here. Much like Chapter 1 of the new OG seasons, where RR and AAT re-released; we’re finally back in Season X when The Paradigm initially released, and quickly disappeared on October 13th 2019, 7 years ago. Obviously The Paradigm wasn’t re-released on October 11th a couple days ago and isn’t in the Item Shop tonight either, but I feel it only makes sense to re-release The Paradigm if they’re trying to re-create the original Season X. The Paradigm released 3 total days before the The End Event, and I feel it only makes sense to re-release her in the same manner, 3 days before the End event occurs in OG Season X again, around Dec 1st-4th. So if Epic wants to continue the trend they started in CH6 S1 with OG Fortnite feeling authentic then they’re actually obligated to bring The Paradigm back. Plus the original owners of the skin already have their exclusive edit style so there really shouldn’t be a problem with bringing this skin back. That and the lore which for ONCE I hope they ignore and just re-release the skin regardless of if she’s actually involved in this End Event or not.
TLDR; exclusive skins have slowly been creeping their way into the item shop. WHICH IS GOOD, and The Paradigm has already been re-released once already, plus OG buyers have an exclusive edit style, so they should just re-release her at this point. They re-released Renegade Raider to re-create the authenticity of Chapter 1 season 1 so they should do the same for Chapter 1 Season X by re-releasing The Paradigm. Also she's a huge lore character (who looks sooooo cool) so it's pretty ridiculous that Epic hasn't brought her back yet.
