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Fortnite has announced its first headlining act for its Festival game, and it’s The Weeknd.Fortnite Festivalis set to launch exclusively inFortniteon Dec. 9.The Canadian artist dropped a trailer Tuesday night, featuring different The Weeknd skins performing his 2022 hit, “Take My Breath.”
According to a press release, “Fortnite Festivalis a new music game where players can play in a band with friends or perform solo on stage with hit music by their favorite artists.”
Fortnite Festivalwill be the first entirely music-focused mode to be introduced to the popular game. WhileFortniteitself is developed by Epic Games,Festivalis being developed by Harmonix,the studio behind theRock Bandvideo game franchise.
This is notFortnite’s first venture into the music scene. In April,Coachella announced a new activation with the video game and its parent company Epic Games calledCoachella Island, a virtual world launching inside ofFortnitealong with mini-games, art installations, festival-themed merch, and virtual recreations of Coachella staples like the concert’s psychedelic Spectra building and the ferris wheel.
“The tagline is, ‘The weekend that never ends,’ and we’re going to be building a program to work with the creators in theFortnitecreative community to add and continue building and expanding what Coachella is inside Fortnite,” Coachella’s innovation lead Sam SchoonovertoldRolling Stone. “Games, art, music; we want Coachella to be the place that Fortnite creators want to debut new music and art experiences in collaboration with artists, and just on their own too for their new experiences.”
Fortnite has also produced high-profile music events before, creatingconcerts for Travis Scott,Ariana Grande, and J Balvin, among others.
In 2021 Fortnite launched theconcert seriesSoundwave,featuring five regional superstars. “This is the natural evolution of the platform,” Nate Nanzer, head of global partnerships forFortnitedeveloper Epic Games, toldRolling Stone. “Our team has continued to show the world what’s possible with interactive entertainment with shows like [Scott’s], but there’s going to be a whole range of experiences from those shows to lighter touch concerts to even just listening to music.We want to create a platform where it isn’t Epic Games creating the shows, it’s the artists and community creators, where everyone from a bedroom DJ to Ariana Grande has the ability to engage with our communities globally.My hope is that there’s something like this happening inFortniteevery day.”
