Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 3 has given us a new lineup of battle pass skins, and it's actually pretty great in kind of a low-key way. Not much stands out from this group at first glance aside from Optimus Prime--but, like every other battle pass collaboration in Chapter 4, his style options are severely lacking.

But this is still a quality group, and it's a lineup that holds a specific appeal to me because all but one of the new original characters looks like they walked into this game from a JRPG. Even Optimus Prime first appeared on screen as an anime character, so it's not like he breaks that mold, really.

All of which is to say that this group of new Fortnite skins has a surprisingly compelling aesthetic, and there are at least four or five that are going to end up as common choices for main skins well after this season ends. Now, let's argue about which ones are the best.

8. Lorenzo

His basic style makes him look like a middle manager version of Nate Drake, and his final form makes him look like the pirate version of a CEO. Lorenzo's story implications are more interesting than this skin is--he's likely the same person as Renzo from last season's pass, and the Ageless Champion from the Season 1 pass, and by extension Geno, the founder of the Imagined Order. But that's a story for another article.

7. Relik

Relik is an odd one. He's not bad looking, but he looks like such a Generic Video Game Guy from Online Looter Shooter 2K24 that it's hard to feel much about him in any direction.

6. Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime is still Optimus Prime, and so I'll be more than happy to have him in my locker as time goes by. But Epic has dropped the ball on every battle pass collaboration in Chapter 4 so far--we had Doom guy with no classic style, Geralt with only a slightly different secret second style, Eren Yeager with only one page of cosmetics and no extra styles, and now we've got an Optimus Prime that doesn't transform into anything. It's pretty silly.

5. Purradise Meowscles

The second remix of the Meowscles skin (after Toon Meowscles in the item shop), Purradise Meowscles is the only Meowscles skin that has no built-in flexing emote, which is not cool. But he's otherwise cool as hell to look at, and his hair is a nice touch after the other two versions of him were bald.

4. Rian

What is it about Rian that I like so much? Is it the vaguely Mario-ish quality of the Stonewash style? Is it how the green Rockslide style is as close to weed branding as a T-rated game like Fortnite is able to have? Is it those big honkin' shoes she's wearing? Yes, yes, and yes.

3. Mariposa

This season's obligatory tattooed woman achieves a whole other level of awesome with her glow-in-the-dark Dia de Muertos look. Considering that such a look has always gone in the item shop in the past, this is an exceptional skin to have in a battle pass. Mariposa is destined to be a sweaty favorite.

2. Trace

My favorite skins, battle pass or otherwise, are ones with gimmicks. And so I'm always thrilled when a skin with decent reactivity shows up in the battle pass--which, to be honest, is very rare. Epic didn't start including one every season until Chapter 3 Season 4, but this is the first time in that span that the reactivity is actually prominent in the design of the skin. And Trace looks so sick when he's lit up that I can't turn it off, even if it's a slight disadvantage.

1. Era

Despite having an actual Transformer in the pass, Era is this season's transforming skin. She's the most JRPG of them all, a time traveler who can change her own family lineage with the Ancestral Shift emote.

I have a theory about this. What if I told you this skin was an homage to Final Fantasy XIII-2, and that the two main styles represented Noel and Serah from that game, and the transformation emote was a nod to how that game let you switch between them at any time? I don't know if it's true, but it's what I choose to believe.