It's rare for Fortnite collaborations to come as a surprise anymore. The size and ability of the leaker community surrounding Fortnite lead to most major events and collaborations being confirmed weeks if not months beforehand. Epic Games has to be quick and clever to slip through a surprise for Fortnite players, which may have just happened yet again. A previously discovered Easter egg referencing The Lord of the Rings could actually be the first evidence of an upcoming Tolkien collaboration.Over a month ago, Epic dropped a Fortnite update that moved the ever-fun "Rock Kid," a kid-shaped arrangement of boulders that Epic has told small side stories with for many seasons now. Rock Kid built what looked to be a small pretend army of cans, bottles, and debris, preparing to storm the walls of a sand castle. Closer inspection of this sand castle revealed it to be a clear recreation of the Battle of Helm's Deep from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.RELATED: Rumor: Fortnite Bringing Back Big Battle Mode with a Few ChangesAt the time, it raised some eyebrows but was otherwise set aside as a fun reference from Epic Games. There was no other evidence of a Lord of the Rings collaboration, after all. That's now changed, however, as German Fortnite leaker MidaRado has begun teasing a new collaboration for Fortnite. According to MidaRado, a new collaboration will hit Fortnite as soon as next week. They even shared a list of potential collaborations, which include Family Guy, Doom, Destiny 2, and also The Lord of the Rings.

Given that there has already been an in-game teaser for The Lord of the Rings with the Rock Kid's Battle of Helm's Deep sand castle, it seems like the likeliest of the four games to be coming to Fortnite soon. It wouldn't be surprising if the other possibilities showed up sooner or later, too, though.

At the same time, it would be somewhat surprising for a new Fortnite collaboration event to start so soon. The Dragon Ball Z collaboration started just this past week and will be ongoing for some time yet. Players have only started collecting their fourth or fifth Dragon Ball, after all. It's not beyond Epic to do multiple collaborations at once, but it could indicate the rumor isn't wholly accurate.

If the rumors are true, Fortnite players will know what the next collaboration will be in a matter of days. It could be a simple drop of The Lord of the Rings skins or a more impactful collaboration alongside Dragon Ball Z's nimbus clouds and kamehamehas. Or it could be something else entirely.

Fortnite is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and mobile devices.

MORE: Fortnite: How to Get Dragon Ball Skins