If you still doubt the reach of Fortnite in 2024, look no further than the fact that it is launching, in part, the first single off the album of recent (now two-time) Oscar-winner, Billie Eilish, in the game.
Fortnite has just come out with a new video previewing the song, CHIHIRO, which has racked up 350,000 views in just 13 hours on Eilish’s page. It’s only about 45 seconds of part of the song, but it is the first anyone has heard of it. It will be added later in Fortnite itself as a Jam Track in its Festival mode later this season.
This promotion comes with the launch of another Billie Eilish skin variant, where we already got a couple a few weeks ago. This one features a red and black Eilish with wings, presumably channeling the music video which we have yet to see in full, but we get a preview of it here. The video has a number of people heading toward some sort of red light, and by the end, it seems like it’s being mixed in with some Fortnite Unreal engine footage.
Fortnite has changed its musical ambitions from large-scale concerts in the battle royale map or its non-combat island to Fortnite Festival, a new, separate game mode where players can use their skins to play real-life songs from dozens and dozens of big artists. Sometimes, there are large-scale crossovers and what they’re doing here with Billie Eilish seems like the biggest collaboration we’ve seen from the mode so far.
We do not know the exact nature of these deals between track usage and the skins themselves, but no doubt this has netted a good sum for Eilish herself and Fortnite gets one of the most popular artists on the planet right now promoting their game, as they promote her new single and album. The skin bundle for her is live now.
The album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, has release date of May 17, a week from now. The debut of this video and skin now is meant to spark pre-orders for the album but jokes on them, I already pre-ordered it. What? I love Billie Eilish. Though buying her actual skin in Fortnite may be a bridge too far for me given how infrequently I play that game now.
So, a cool collaboration here and I cannot wait for the full song and the album itself. It sounds great even in this short clip.
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