Fortnite’s next live music concert is Eminem, marking the rapper's first video game cameo in almost 20 years
If you don’t count his star turn in god-awful mobile game Shady Wars, that is
Battle royale shooter-turned-virtual music festival Fortnite is amping up its next musical collaboration - and this time, it’s bringing rapper Eminem back to the world of the video games for the first time in years.
Fortnite is currently gearing up for its The Big Bang event, which will kick off in the game’s Battle Royale mode on Saturday December 2nd at 2pm ET/7pm GMT.
While Epic are yet to reveal exactly what’s planned, expect it to be similar to the previous appearance of rapper Travis Scott in Fortnite’s first live musical concert Astronomical back in 2020 - which was “attended” by a then-record 12 million concurrent players. Other artists including Marshmello, Major Lazer and Diplo, and Ariana Grande have performed in-game, with K-pop stars BTS and The Kid Laroi popping up in the game with emotes, skins and custom levels.
Alongside Eminem’s appearance, The Big Bang event “marks a new beginning for Fortnite” as its truncated Season OG draws to the end of its history trip back through Fortnite seasons and maps of old as it prepares for the upcoming Chapter 5.
As you’d expect, Eminem’s appearance in Fortnite will also herald some new cosmetics in its item store, including three skins inspired by the rapper’s various characters. Slim Shady appears to be Eminem as seen during his early years as Marshall Mathers, while Marshall Never More puts him in a suit and fedora - pulled from most recent original album Music to be Murdered By - and Rap Boy turns him into a superhero-like persona clearly inspired by his parody of Batman sidekick Robin in the music video for Without Me.
Attending the concert will get you an Eminem-themed loading screen, along with a Magma style for the Marshall Never More outfit, if that tickles your fancy.
Eminem’s appearance in Fortnite marks the first time in almost two decades that the hit rapper has made a cameo in a video game, if you discount his starring turn in terrible self-promotional 2015 mobile rhythm game Shady Wars. (Better forgotten, alongside equally awful iPhone brawler Relapse: Resistance from 2009.)
While Eminem’s songs have appeared in everything from DJ Hero (on which he also worked as a consultant, apparently) to Fortnite’s car radio, the rapper himself doesn’t seem to have been turned into polygons since his cameo as a dodgy cop in 2005’s 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Before that, he showed up as a custom character model in Quake III: Arena on the Dr. Dre-themed map Chronic. What a legacy.