Boba Fett is coming to Fortnite to celebrate 'The Book Of Boba Fett' Star Wars series on Disney Plus

It's official: The infamous Han Solo bounty hunter of "Star Wars" is coming to Fortnite.

Boba Fett will drop on to the game's island on Dec. 24 at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT Dec. 25), game maker Epic Games announced Friday to mark Disney Plus Day for the streaming service Disney Plus, which is offering a subscription deal for the streaming service through Nov. 18 to sign up for $1.99 for a month.

Fett will make his debut just days before he gets his own series on Disney Plus, "The Book of Boba Fett." The new show debuts Dec. 29 and is a spinoff of another bounty hunter series that has reached international acclaim, "The Mandalorian."

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With Boba Fett's arrival, Fortnite will dive into deeper into the Star Wars universe following a Mandalorian-themed season that ran in late 2020 and early 2021. It also looks like Fennic Shand, his bounty-hunting partner from "The Mandalorian," may also be coming to the game.

Both the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda were the starring skins of Chapter 2, Season 5, which opened up bounty hunting among players in Fortnite for the first time. Among other tasks, players had to complete bounties for The Mandalorian and even take on the fighter himself at a spot on the map that featured his ship, the Razor Crest. You could even win a Beskar umbrella in a limited-time mode that season.

Fortnite usually releases skins to celebrate "Star Wars Day" (May 4, or May the Fourth Be With You), although they skipped the opportunity in 2021. "Star Wars" allusions also popped up in two recent season finales, one featuring a doomed UFO mothership that had deep Death Star-like bays, and another with flying Battle Buses that included a shootout much like the end of 1977's "A New Hope."

Video: Watch the 1st trailer for 'The Book of Boba Fett'

While Fortnite is meant to appeal to pre-teens and teens, it often includes allusions to much older space franchises that their parents would remember, too. For example, Ripley and the Xenomorph from "Alien" both made a reappearance in the Fortnite shop in recent days. 

Several skins from Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" also came into Fortnite recently; while they reference the 2021 movie, more than a few parents would remember the infamous 1984 Hollywood attempt at recreating the popular book franchise.

Even the current season, Chapter 2, Season 8, has references that date to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union at the dawn of the Space Age in the 1950s. The star is J.B. Chimpanski, a primate that likely evokes the use of chimps by the United States to test the Mercury spacecraft. (The Soviets preferred to fly other animals such as dogs, most famously Laika.)

Related: Fortnite flashback: Just how accurate was the Chapter 2 black hole

That said, there is also plenty of space content that all ages would enjoy. Past seasons have featured a mystery with ancient astronauts and a black hole that once swallowed the entire map. The game also sells random space-themed skins from time to time, such as the stunning Galaxia that introduced a subscription service in November 2020.

Epic Games has been adding virtual performances to expand upon its player base, especially after the coronavirus pandemic affected worldwide in-person events by singers starting in March 2020. (Singer Ariana Grande arrived on the island once again last month, for example.) Offscreen, the company has also hit the news periodically concerning disputes with Apple and Google regarding how third-party payments should be processed in the tech giants' gift shops.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.