Fortnite now has a sort of Disneyland, but without Disney and featuring the 90s band Weezer. Our author Schuhmann says: “Okay, I’m out.” It seems hardly anyone understands this thing.
Who is Weezer? Weezer is a band I’ve never consciously thought about. They actually had a few songs that I’ve heard on the radio often and could hum along to. Especially Beverly Hills (2005) and Buddy Holly (1994).
And now they are in Fortnite.
This is the Weezer park: I recently entered a sort of “Weezer nightmare” in the Creative mode of Fortnite when I entered the Weezer park. It’s relatively easy to find, as it’s especially promoted and showcased by Epic. You enter right from the lobby.
The Creative mode of Fortnite is a kind of “mini-Minecraft,” where players build creative experiences for others: for example, courses that play music when you pass through them.
The Weezer park is an island that recreates a sort of concert by Weezer, but without an actual concert, rather with Fortnite fairground attractions.
In the background, “Weezer” plays continuously, but not the songs I know, rather some kind of mumbling stuff that you tune out while you slide around and do something. I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics, but PC Gamer listed them, and it seems to mainly revolve around sex.
The attractions consist of things like this:
- In one course, you sit in the back seat of an all-terrain vehicle, shoot a few dummies, and then you’re back at the start
- In another attraction, you slide along rails while your feet get frozen
- Then there’s a skate park where you presumably should collect coins like in “Mario”
- an Indiana Jones-type cave is also in the Weezer park: Here players jump over walls of flames and navigate around them
What’s behind it? Nobody really knows. US sites assume that it’s a collaboration between Fortnite and Weezer so that they can promote their new album in the game.
The frontman of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo, is said to be a big Fortnite fan, and the Epic folks, like creative chief Donald Mustard, are big Weezer fans, and something happened there.
PC Gamer assumes that many Epic employees are in their late 30s to mid-40s, went to college in the 90s, and were fans of Weezer during that wild party time.
It seems that the Fortnite developers created the Marshmello event for the players, while the Weezer collaboration is more for themselves.
Weezer in Fortnite definitely seems to happen with Epic’s blessing. They also officially introduced the Weezer park on Twitter.
Does anyone understand this? At the moment, everyone seems to be reacting a bit confused to the park.
- At Polygon , they can’t imagine that 9-year-olds could do the floss dance to “Buddy Holly.” After all, that song is already 25 years old.
- At PC Gamer, the Weezer park is described as “hell”
- On reddit, people are confused, on YouTube bewildered. Often one reads that they must have landed in the “darkest timeline.”
- And I feel like I’m too old for this stuff.
That’s why it’s so weird: While the Marshmello concert fit thematically with Fortnite: Young artist for a young audience and it was seamlessly integrated as an event into the game world, the Weezer thing just feels strange and forced now.
Hardly anyone sees a connection between Weezer and Fortnite. The fact that it just went live without announcement seems to contribute to this confusion.
It seems that the Fortnite developers created the Marshmello event for the players, while the Weezer collaboration is more for themselves.
