Springfield joined Epic Games earlier this month. Fortnitebringing a little piece of simpsons For gamers around the world.
Along with a virtual Springfield (which includes dozens of locations from the long-running series), the show’s creative team wrote a series simpsons Shorts are introducing new features and drops. The shorts can be seen on Disney+, Fortnite, and the game’s social channels.
The result is a collaboration between Disney and Epic simpsons From creator Gracie Films that crosses platforms, to gamers playing in the world of Springfield within Fortnite, Disney+ users are watching the Simpsons shorts filled with Fortnite Easter eggs and plot points to listen to. simpsons Showrunner Matt Selman and writer Jeff Westbrook explain this, creating a cross-generational experience that is unlike many things that have come before it.
yes, like for the show too simpsonsWhich started its first episode almost 36 years ago.
“I think simpsons It’s unique not only in the marketplace, but in the universe, we have three generations of fans, four generations, who grew up or have watched the show at some point,” explains Selman. hollywood reporter in an interview. “And now, the fans watching it in college also include kids who are in college. No other show has that level of multi-generational emotional engagement with its fan base, no matter how you got engaged or when you got engaged, whether it’s season four to 10, or 15 to 20. It’s like the backdrop of your life, the emotional journey of your life, this show is.
“And so when it comes to brand partnerships, we have to take advantage of it,” he said with a smile.
,simpsons cooperation with Fortnite “Combined gameplay, storytelling and brand-new content to celebrate the series and create an authentic connection between TV and gaming audiences,” says Adam Sussman, President, Epic Games. “The experience captured the humor, heart and cultural moments that defined simpsons For 35 years.”
Selman, along with fellow writer Jeff Westbrook, emphasized the collaborative nature of the effort, trying to bring together elements from the show and its world. FortniteAnd some ridiculous things from the game and characters from the show’s world.
There’s even a storyline that connects the animated shorts to the gameplay, in which Homer uses the Zero Point Shard (this is the one). Fortnite Reference) To create a better world.
Selman says, “It’s Homer’s emotions, Homer’s unique comic personality that is driving this story of all this chaos and nonsense, but he also wants to make the world better with the magical crystal.”
Watch the first installment below:
“There are a lot of memes out there that young people look at, and we tried our best to put them in as Easter eggs.” Fortnite Play the game,’” Westbrook says. ”A lot of it came from our collaboration with Epic Games on this, they were very helpful in letting us know what the gameplay possibilities were, and where we could fill in little Easter eggs and where we could modify the environment, put in little jokes here and there. So it was really useful to have them contribute and help with things like this.
Indeed, in both Shorts and Springfield Island Fortnite are usually full of jokes simpsons case. Westbrook says this was by design.
,simpsons Has always been about background jokes. If it’s possible, every scene has five jokes, dialogue, something in the background, someone going on,” Westbrook says. “So that all came naturally to us to try and work on, sign jokes, jokes on the blimp, any place where we see an opportunity to put jokes in, we’re going to try and have a jam there, and Fortnite It was all about him. They were all like, this is awesome. Easter eggs everywhere. “They came up with a lot of great things.”
The end result is at once classic Simpsons and something entirely new, packed with humor for fans of the show or fans of the games, a rare entertainment crossover that parents and kids can enjoy together. And there are a lot of families among them, with Epic Games saying that more than 53 million players came to Springfield in the first two weeks of the season alone.
“[There’s]an aspect of nostalgia, maybe when I was in high school or college or when I used to watch that show when I was six years old,” Selman says. “But then put into this game, it’s not just the gameplay that’s great and the jokes that are great and the story that’s great, but there’s also the nostalgia, the emotion thing.”
“It’s always been a show with a lot of depth, like there’s a lot of characters that people know and love, and you can bring them in,” says Westbrook. “There’s a lot of stuff in there simpsons Something you can work with, and I think that helps a little bit. But it’s really nice when you hear parents talk about how they sat down with their kids to watch the same shows they watched as kids.”
And it highlights how the show, which has released new episodes across five different decades, is continuing to bring its controlled chaos to new venues and platforms, in this case thanks to Disney’s partnership with Epic Games, which includes Marvel and Star Wars collaborations, as well as plans for an upcoming Disney-based interactive world.
“Fortnite | simpsons This isn’t just a return to gaming simpsons“It redefines how audiences experience stories across a variety of formats,” says Shawn Shoptow, executive vice president of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. “By bringing one of television’s most iconic franchises to Fortnite, a season written by the incredible creative team at Gracie Films, we are inviting fans to experience storytelling and communities in a bold new way.”
“A big part of that is also our collaboration with Disney,” Selman says. “Disney bought the intellectual property of Fox in 2019, and Disney has given us access to all these new playgrounds that are so much fun to play in. Now we can exist in so many more dimensions, it’s fantastic.”
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