Epic Games just declared war on Apple with a spoof of the company's most iconic ad — and it's chock-full of clever Easter eggs.
The video game company released a video on Thursday titled "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite," a play on Apple's "1984" television ad which aired during the Super Bowl that year, and which was itself based on George Orwell's dystopian novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four." In Epic's video, a unicorn-pickaxe-wielding heroine races through a hall full of drone-like viewers, unable to tear their eyes away from an apple-headed dictator onscreen.
"Today we celebrate the anniversary of the platform unification directives," the dictator says. "For years, they have given us their songs, their labor, their dreams. In exchange, we have taken our tribute, our profits, our control. This power is ours and ours alone. We shall prevail."
The video is a parody of Apple's own ad, but it's also a jab at Apple's controversial App Store policies. Epic announced on Thursday that it had started offering players the option to pay Epic directly for in-game purchases rather than going through the App Store, which charges a 30% commission on app purchases. As a result, Apple pulled "Fortnite" from the App Store, leading Epic to release the video and sue Apple for what it alleges are monopolistic business practices.
While "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite" is a light-hearted mockery in the spirit of Epic's cartoonish yet hyper-popular video game, it also contains multiple Easter eggs and hidden meanings. Take a look at what we've noticed so far.