Fortnite’s AI Darth Vader Saying “Skibidi” Is Hilarious, But It’s Also the Future of Gaming (Like It or Not)

So, Fortnite players can now talk to Darth Vader. Yes, actually talk to him. Not just throw up an emote or wave awkwardly from a distance while dressed like Goku. You speak, he responds—in the iconic voice of James Earl Jones, recreated by AI. Welcome to the weirdest (and most inevitable) future of gaming.

In its latest Star Wars crossover event, Epic Games has taken things way beyond battle pass skins and lightsabers. Now, when you find and defeat Darth Vader on the map, you can recruit him to your squad and chat with him using in-game audio. And thanks to AI models from Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash and ElevenLabs' Flash v2.5, Vader will talk back. In character. In real time.

And of course, players immediately did what players do best: they tested the absolute limits.
Twitch streamer Loserfruit wasted no time seeing if the Sith Lord would play along with some good old-fashioned internet nonsense, getting him to say things like "skibidi,"  talk in "Italian brain rot," and... well, some other phrases Epic had to patch out within hours. It's like someone handed a Sith Lord a TikTok account and no manual.

And yeah—it's funny. It's chaotic. It's meme-fuel. But once you stop laughing, it's also kind of mind-blowing, because this is more than just a goofy event. This is a glimpse into the future of how we might interact with video games—and it's coming fast.

Darth Vader Today, Every NPC Tomorrow?

Right now, we're giggling at Darth Vader saying "Hawk Tuah," but the tech behind it is actually terrifyingly impressive. Unlike the canned dialogue of old-school games—or even modern AAA titles with massive voice acting budgets—this is fully AI-powered conversation, generated on the fly, in real-time, in-character, With the original actor's voice.

Today, it's limited to one event, one character, one specific implementation. But the writing's on the wall: this is just the beginning.

Imagine every character in your favorite RPG having fully dynamic conversations. No dialogue trees. No "select option 1, 2, or 3." You just talk to them like you would a real person, and they respond, in their own voice, in character, reacting to what you say.

Barkeep NPCs could offer you new quest hints based on what you actually ask them. The snarky spaceship AI could make personalized jokes about how many times you crash-landed that week. Villains could taunt you in real-time as you're fighting them.

We're not just talking immersion—we're talking about games becoming living, breathing worlds filled with characters you can actually talk to. 

The Ethics Are... Murky (At Best)

And, of course, this opens a whole Death Star-sized can of ethical worms. James Earl Jones signed off on using his voice for these kinds of projects, but what happens when studios decide they don't need living actors at all? What does the future of voice acting look like when there are no voice lines left to record—only models to fine-tune? Will the next generation of actors be competing with eternal, flawless versions of legends from the past?

These are the murky waters we're sailing into. The tech is here. It's only going to get faster, cheaper, and more widespread. And while today it's mostly being used to make Darth Vader say "ballerina cappuccina," tomorrow it might completely change how we experience characters, how actors work, and what we even expect from games.
It looks ridiculous now. It will look amazing later.
Whether we're ready or not—the future of gaming is already talking back.