New music-based game mode Fortnite Festival to debut on Dec. 9 with The Weeknd

As part of The Big Bang event for Fortnite earlier today, Epic Games gave the first preview of its upcoming music game Fortnite Festival, which is coming this Dec. 9.

Epic Games describes Fortnite Festival as “a new music game where players can play in a band with friends or perform solo on stage with hit music by their favorite artists.” It is being developed by Harmonix, which is famously known for creating the iconic music game franchise Rock Band.

The game mechanics are still not revealed at the moment. However, the first featured artist for its first season will be The Weeknd. A thumbnail image was posted by the newly-created Fortnite Festival Twitter account showing the Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter in his animated form, which could be a new skin coming to the game as well.

Rumors about the Fortnite Festival began to surface last month, with known Fortnite leaker HYPEX mentioning that the upcoming rhythm mode known as “Festival” will have casual and competitive game modes. A list of music superstars and bands was also leaked, including Lady Gaga, Linkin Park, Toto, Imagine Dragons, and Alice Cooper. The Weeknd, however, was not on the said list.

Music icons translated into Fortnite skins are nothing new, with superstars like Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, and Travis Scott being some of those icons who had collaborations with Epic Games. But this will be the first time that a music game mode will be released in Fortnite, making the expectations bigger, especially since Harminox will be on top of the game’s development.

Aside from Fortnite Festival, two more upcoming game modes were revealed in the Big Bang live stream. These are the Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing game modes, and all three will be revealed more thoroughly in The Game Awards 2023 this Dec.7 at 7pm CT.