'Fortnite' Season 6 Week 1 Could Bring a New Feature to the Game: Music
Is that DJ a bigger clue than we thought?
Fortnite: Battle Royale Season 6 Week 1 is just a day away, and developer Epic Games has done its best to keep a tight lid on any big surprises coming in the next major update. However, one official teaser image for Season 6 may have inadvertently revealed a huge change coming to Fortnite — or maybe we’re just reading into things.
It all started with that DJ llama teaser. You know the one. It looks like the Fortnite mascot just joined Daft Punk. Posing in front of that mysterious purple cube, the llama also revealed a delayed release date for Season 6, which may have diverted our attention away from the actual biggest clue: the music.
Here’s our Fortnite Season 6 theory: Epic Games is about to add music to the game, making it possible to match your emotes to popular songs that inspired them. The company can then share those profits with the musicians, many of whom are already complaining that Fortnite stole their dances and turned them into popular emotes.
You might not realize it, but some of Fortnite’s most popular emotes come from the hip-hop world. That includes Snoop Dogg’s dance moves in the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” video and 2Milly’s “Milly Rock” — the rapper has already said he’s working with his lawyers to get money from Epic.
The situation really heated up when Chance the Rapper weighed in, tweeting that Epic should attach these emotes to the actual rap songs that inspired them while also sharing that money with the rappers.
Fortnite never issued an official response, but the company could potentially make things right when Season 6 launches this week. Letting players purchase songs that play in-game would be a fun new feature that also placates a growing number of annoyed artists who feel like they’ve been robbed.
Beyond these legal gripes, there’s a growing connection between Fortnite and the music industry that’s hard to ignore. Rappers release songs about the game and rock bands stream it at their shows. Even Drake is into Fortnite.
Of course, that would mean setting up complicated contracts with multiple record labels, but if any company can do it it’s probably Epic. After all, Fortnite is so popular it finally convinced Sony to allow cross-play on PS4. Can Fortnite save the music industry next? We could find out very soon.
Fortnite Season 6 begins on September 27.
