Today, Epic Games announced that KizunaAI will join the storm of collaborations in the ultra-popular battle royale game Fortnite and its spinoffs.
The announcement was made on X (formerly Twitter) by the Fortnite Festival account, and we know that the collaboration will include outfits, jam tracks, and more cosmetics. The goodies will be implemented on January 16.
If you’re unfamiliar with KizunaAI, she is basically the original Vtuber. While she’s not technically the first to use a digital character as a streamer persona, she’s definitely the one who popularized the trend following her debut on YouTube in 2016.
Yet, quite interestingly, despite starting the trend, KizunaAI has always been rather detached from the tropes and agency-driven antics of more recent Vtubers.
Funnily, the announcement by Epic Games caused a storm of really weird reactions, which you can check out for yourself by looking at the replies.
Many are actually left wondering because, likely due to their age, they don’t know who KizunaAI is, which isn’t too shocking considering that the climax of her success came a few years back.
Some are going as far as believing the collaboration means that Fortnite is now including generative AI, as if that were actually a new thing. That ship has certainly sailed.
If you want a rabbit hole, that thread will certainly prove a very deep one to explore.
Of course, now that the OG Vtuber will be part of Fortnite, we can certainly wonder whether this opens the gates to collaborations with others within the same space, who might certainly be better known among the game’s young audience. Que Sera, Sera.
In other Fortnite news, Epic Games’ battle royale game is continuing its evolution toward a full-fledged Metaverse, with island creators now able to join the developer of Unreal Engine in nickel-and-diming everyone with microtransactions aplenty. Oh, Joy.
