“The story around the game is that Murder Mountain is a bucolic but deranged island where Murder Man lives,” Pearson says. “The woods are full of half-deer/half-men, and underneath Murder Man’s cabin, you’ll find an air vent that leads into the Liquid Death corporate HQ.”

“The game begins because Murder Man has been called away to jury duty, so you have to fill in for him and murder people’s thirst using Liquid Death.”

Um, look at that dude. He’s not getting on a jury! Though props to the malicious mascot for meeting his civic obligation.

“If you’re the last player standing,” Person continues, “you’ll win the grand prize of having Murder Man personally murder your thirst when he returns.”

So, everyone’s annihilated at the end. That’s the Liquid Death way!

Gamers can play on any platform supporting Fortnite by searching “Liquid Death” or using the UEFN code 8498-5199-9768.

All in all, it’s a cheeky hack in tune with LD’s various crazed campaigns (though not as outrageous or upsetting as some.)

“We hate marketing,” Pearson says. “We’d much rather just make entertainment instead. Usually we do that in the form of insane, limited-edition products and hilarious videos that poke fun at culture. “But for the holidays, when everyone is home playing games, we decided to do it in the form of a game that lets people enter the Liquid Death universe in a new way.”

Buoy Studio helped bring “Murder Island” to life. (Strange way to phrase it, but accurate nonetheless.)

Spanish fashion house Balenciaga drapes Fortnite characters in luxe skins, part of a sweeping collaboration that also includes limited-edition apparel in the real world.

Below, Doggo and other Fortnite faves style their Balenciaga couture:

If you’d rather clothe your metaverse mates in khakis and red polos, Jake from State Farm can oblige at NBA2K. As for Balenciaga and Fortnite, you can also unlock back-blings, gliders, wraps, sprays, emotes—and yes, you knew it was coming, pickaxes.

The partnership features an in-game shop selling real-world hats, shirts, all manner of accessories and even cosmetics. The prices have caused something of a media stir. This hoodie, for example, costs $725:

That’s $725. For a hoodie. Still, it’s a bargain compared to the long-sleeve logo-shirts, which could set you back $995.

There’s virtual signage, natch, with corresponding billboards set to appear in major cities:

Last December, Balenciaga released its Autumn Winter 2021 collection through a video game titled Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow. The company worked with Fortnite publisher Epic Games on that campaign, developed via 3-D platform Unreal Engine.

“From there, we have continued to be inspired by the creativity of Unreal and Fortnite communities,” says Balenciaga artistic director Demna Gvasalia. “It made total sense, to me, that we collaborate further.”

The deal makes sense to gaming site Kotaku, too, though not as Balenciaga intended. In an acerbic write-up headlined “The Fortnite x Balenciaga Collab Is Everything the Game Deserves,” editor Leigh Plunkett takes a pickaxe to the approach:

That run-on sentence makes Doggo sad.

Dexerto adopts a more pragmatic view, likening the push to past hits in the space, such as Gucci’s work with Fnatic and 100 Thieves, and Louis Vuitton’s pairing with League of Legends. The Verge calls the Balenciaga-Fortnite union “an obvious one, given how important virtual outfits are to the culture of the game,” with users shuffling the looks of their avatars based on the ebb and flow of competition.

In April 2020, Epic Games held a genre-defining, record-setting, rule-breaking event inside Fortnite featuring Travis Scott in an immersive, shared musical experience for fans. “Astronomical” set a standard that accelerated digital production and virtual experiences, and solidified both Fortnite and Travis Scott as trailblazers in their respective industries, and also in global culture.

The event exceeded all goals and expectations, internally and externally: 12.3 million Fortnite players watched live, with 27.7 million unique players in-game participating 45.8 million times across five events. The physical merch and apparel from Travis Scott x Fortnite by Cactus Jack also sold out within minutes. 

In the video above, Phil Rampulla, Tommy Jacob, Tim Elek and Shak Khavarian of Epic Games tells us more about how the event came together. And below, check out the full event video.

At the climax of “1984,” a dictator type delivers a video-screen address to the cowering masses. As he says, “This power is ours and ours alone. We shall prevail,” a young woman hurls a humongous hammer at the image, which explodes in a flash of light.

In Epic’s version, a freaky dude with an Apple-face gives the speech, until a woman shatters the screen with a colorful unicorn-headed pickaxe from the Fortnite game.

Ultimately, this message appears: “Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices. Join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming ‘1984,’” followed by the hashtag #FreeFortnite.

The tussle stems from Epic’s introduction of a direct payment system into Fortnite’s iOS app, which Apple says violates its guidelines. Google has also kicked Fortnite off the Google Play store. (Fortnite remains available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.)

Along with launching “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite” on its YouTube and Twitch channels, Epic filed a civil lawsuit against Apple. The company is also suing Google.

YouTube user Spunky posted this side-by-side comparison of the ads:

Thousands of gamers participated, egged on by messages on Maxsialtele’s YouTube channel and Milka’s social feeds.

The effort echoes other efforts to keep beloved IRL staples—such as hockey playoffs and rock concerts—alive, in a virtual sense, using the latest technology. It also represents David’s first outing for Milka. The brand has produced some notable work in recent years, especially around various holidays. “The Unsung Hero,” a 2019 yuletide film developed with Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, serves as a sweet example.

“Due to Covid-19, many brands have had to go online in order to interact with their consumers,” notes David executive creative director André Toledo. “However, for this specific campaign, we were more inspired by the heritage of the brand. Milka is a very iconic brand when we talk about Easter. So, we just thought: ‘How can we can keep this beloved tradition alive?’ And we got the answer in the gaming world.”

Moving forward, with some brands under increasing pressure from the pandemic, “the gaming world is going to grow and become a strong point of communication to connect with people,” he says.

CREDITS

Milka
“The Virtual Egg Hunt”

David Madrid
Global CCO & Partner: Pancho Cassis
Global COO: Sylvia Panico
Executive Creative Director: Saulo Rocha, André Toledo
Creative Director : Fred Bosch, Álvaro Palma
Copywriter: Luis Giraldo, Miguel Ángel Gómez, Guilherme Pinheiro
Art Director: Felipe Antonioli, Mariana Valderrama
Account Director: María García Herranz
Strategy Director: Patricia Urgoiti
Head of Production: Diego Basualdo
PR: Isabel Amaro

WPP Team
WPP Team Lead Milka: Nadia Katsiouli
WPP PMO Lead Milka: Melina Boelen
WPP Global Creative Lead Milka:  Stephan Vogel
WPP Global Strategy Lead Milka: Brian McCarter

Milka, Mondelez
Global Director Milka: Godert Van Den Heuvel
International Brand Manager: Lavinia Ghinescu
Junior Brand Manager: Ana Maria Mircea

Gameset, Poland
Head of Games Marketing: Filip Gapinski
Junior Project Management: Angelika Adamczuk
CEO and Strategy Director: Piotr Bombo

None of this was easy. Liferun required true creative bravery on the part of the ICRC, a 150-year-old, three-time Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization whose work on issues of war and peace affects all of humanity, and for whom a medium like Fortnite was highly unconventional. But in embracing the potential of gaming for good, they were able to inspire growth of awareness and relevance to a global demographic they would not easily have reached otherwise. 

In producing Liferun, we learned three key lessons that others might find useful in making games that aim to do good:

Be specific about the impact you want to make.

Just as a humanitarian or charitable organization must have a clear mission to be effective, a game that aims to do good should have a clear goal. In our case, it was to drive awareness of the ICRC’s mission. A recent study by the ICRC found that millennials’ understanding of some of the human rights that the ICRC is dedicated to protecting is eroding. So, we defined Liferun’s goal as being about increasing people’s awareness and understanding of the ICRC’s mission. Donations, which we solicited online, were (and are!) very welcome, but not our core motivation. A clear mission and purpose will help to narrow features and to make creative decisions, and to ensure that you’re focused on making an impact.

Don’t be afraid to make it fun.

When dealing with issues as serious as human suffering in war, it’s easy to assume your experience must be weighty and sober. And that certainly can be a meaningful approach. But the gravity of a topic shouldn’t prevent you from using a broader creative palette. Video games are remarkable in their ability to immerse players in un-realities, which can engage audiences in different ways than hyper-realism. And games are unique from other mediums in that they demand some manner of skill from audiences, and that they end with a winning (or losing) state. If you are dealing with an ultra-serious subject, skill and winning can become fraught. What does “winning” mean? Can gameplay accurately replicate real-world stakes? Embracing metaphor, as we did in Liferun, enables you to test players’ skills and create win-states that are fun, while exposing people to issues from surprising and potentially more accessible perspectives.

Make it authentic.

Fortnite is all the rage for brands wanting to engage its massive global audience. But to create a meaningful experience for the Red Cross, we knew that we needed more than a simple skin or a branded island. The gameplay that Team Evolve built was the first step in making the experience truly authentic to Fortnite. But what makes Fortnite so engaging is not the game alone: Because Fortnite is, above all, a social game, we engaged Fortnite’s community. We launched Liferun at PAX South, one the game industry’s biggest conventions, and invited some of Fortnite’s most notable players—DrLupo, ONE_shot_GURL, and Lachlan—to play Liferun in a mini-tournament where we handed out the very first Fortnite Peace Prize. (Lachlan won.) Directly involving the gaming community in a game with a social mission makes it more than mere cosplay, and demonstrates to gamers that their energy and passions are relevant and meaningful.

Video games and their fans are a vast and largely untapped resource for social impact. This unrealized potential is especially unfortunate since successful video games demand that players do many of the things that are required to make a difference in the world: immerse yourself in realities that are not your own; collaborate to win; look at problems from different points of view; overcome obstacles through tenacity and creativity. All of these attributes, if activated in the right way, have the potential to prove that gaming can be a force for good in the world.

Fortnite is a battle royale style survival game, where 100 players fight to be the last one standing. (Remember dodgeball?) Its creative mode enables users to create their own islands and rules of engagement. Team Evolve works with brands looking to exploit that.

“Video games represent a huge opportunity to spread the word about the importance of the laws of armed conflict and how they are designed to protect the most vulnerable in conflict zones,” says Jennifer Hauseman, director of communications and information management at the ICRC. “This mode that we have co-developed is our first foray into creative modes on Fortnite.” 

Liferun lets players act as ICRC workers in the field, and up to 16 people can share a map. Its four different missions include saving lives in a war-torn city, de-arming mines, rebuilding local infrastructure, and delivering supplies through conflict zones. 

The mode debuted at PAX South 2020 on Jan. 19, headlined by FPS streamer DrLupo, Fortnite gamer ONE_shot_GURL, and Fortnite streamer Lachlan. The first-ever Fortnite Peace Prize was also issued for the winner of Liferun’s inaugural session; Lachlan took it home. 

“Video games have been mainstream entertainment and social platforms for a long time, and we know that many gamers are also current, past or future soldiers, army officers, armed group members, CEOs of companies, lawyers and political leaders,” Hauseman says. “We need to talk to them in a smart and engaging way to explain that civilians suffer greatly in conflict.”

The mode has reached about 14 million users since its release.

CREDITS

Danielle Trivisonno-Hawley, EVP and ECD, Wunderman Thompson Seattle
Jason Brush, EVP Product & Service Design, Head of Innovation at Wunderman Thompson Seattle
Claire Nellessen, Senior Art Director, Wunderman Thompson Seattle
Craig Jelniker, Director of Integrated Production, Wunderman Thompson Seattle
Rick Albano, Executive Creative Director, Swift

Those who are interested should add @DarewinFr on PlayStation Network and schedule a game with the agency. 

“People add us on Fortnite and we ask for their book,” a rep for Dare.Win tells Muse. “After that, we invite them to play, and during a game we chat together with a microphone, asking some questions.” 

Any merging of the real world with video game worlds can be pretty fun. For us, the most memorable recent example was when Wieden + Kennedy built a phone in Minecraft that could make real-world calls. 

Dare.Win is taking pity on those who don’t play Fortnite, however. They can apply for the internship through the email address IDontPlayFortnite@darewin.fr​. But let’s face it—those Luddites don’t stand a chance.