Ryan Reynolds’ video game movie Free Guy features a cameo by Ninja, one of the biggest personalities in online gaming. Hollywood’s history of video game movie adaptations is filled with misses, but there have been a bit more hits in recent years. Free Guy doesn’t directly adapt an existing game but instead is an original IP that has video game elements to it. As a result, there are plenty of references to gaming culture.

Free Guy is primarily set inside the video game called Free City, where Reynolds plays a non-playable character and bank teller named Guy. However, this NPC’s life changes once he understands that he exists inside of a video game and begins leveling up by being the good guy. The video game setting allows Free Guy to include a lot of action that is reminiscent of different games. But, the movie’s ability to reference actual video games and the current gaming culture doesn’t stop there. Plenty of gamers and streamers are scattered among Free Guy‘s celebrity cameos, including Ninja.

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Tyler Blevins – aka Ninja – is one of many real-life gamers and video game personalities to appear in Free Guy. He plays himself in the movie and is shown multiple times sharing his opinions on what is happening with Free City. The mystery of the identity of “Blue Shirt Guy” takes Free City by storm, with Free Guy showing that he is a worldwide sensation during the height of his do-gooding. This allows director Shawn Levy to cut outside of Free City and show how people in the real world are responding to what Guy is up to. This is where Ninja’s Free Guy cameo happens, as he discusses what Guy is doing.

Ninja’s Free Guy cameo was announced prior to the movie’s release, alongside his contemporaries Pokimane, DanTDM, Lazarbeam, and Jacksepticeye. Blevins’ gaming career started by playing Halo 3, H1Z1, and PUBG, but his popularity skyrocketed with his Fortnite streams in 2017. He’s amassed a major following on Twitch through the game and even became a skin inside Fortnite. Ninja temporarily left Twitch to exclusively stream on Mixer, but he returned to the popular streaming site following Mixer’s shutdown. Now, Ninja has the biggest Twitch channel in history and can add a cameo in a major Ryan Reynolds blockbuster to his résumé.

Free Guy might not give Ninja the biggest role to play, but his appearance does help tie the movie into the current state of video games. With Disney already beginning to think about what Free Guy 2 could be about, this might not be the only chance Ninja has to appear in the video game movie franchise. Depending on the plot of a sequel and the gamer’s availability, perhaps Ninja could even take on a slightly larger role. At the very least, it would be fun if Ninja’s Free Guy cameo continued into a sequel where he just always comments about what is happening with Guy and the next story that is told.

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Cooper Hood
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Cooper Hood is a news and feature writer for Screen Rant. He joined Screen Rant in late 2016 following a year-long stint with MCU Exchange, which came after first developing an MCU blog of his own. He graduated college in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Media & Public Communication, with a minor in Media Production. Cooper’s love for movies began by watching Toy Story and Lion King on repeat as a child, but it wasn’t until The Avengers that he took an invested interest in movies and the filmmaking process, leading him to discover the world of film journalism. Every year Cooper looks forward to seeing the latest blockbusters from the likes of Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, but also loves the rush to catch up on Oscar films near the end of the year. When he isn’t writing about or watching new releases, Cooper is a fantasy football obsessive and looking to expand his Blu-Ray collection – because physical media is still king! Follow Cooper on Twitter @MovieCooper.

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