Fortnite Balenciaga Update: 3D Scanned Fashion And The Metaverse

Fashion brand Balenciaga announced they'd be teaming up with Fortnite this week for some wild outfits. This is a luxury fashion house, this Balenciaga, but they'll be dropping some clothing for Fortnite characters all the same. They'll appear in the game with a new "Balenciaga Fit Set" for four characters.

In the outfit set there'll be an Unchained Ramirez Outfit, a Shady Doggo Outfit, a Fashion Banshee Outfit, and a Game Knight Outfit. Just like the real store, there'll be an in-game Balenciaga retail store. In a Strange Times Featured Hub there'll be a community-driven living look book for the clothing line. There'll be billboards, with the brand, and... basically you're meant to get excited about advertising.

This release will include physical clothing items as well, appearing in "select" Balenciaga stores as well as the Balenciaga website store. There'll be hoodies, t-shirts, hats, "and more" starting on September 21, 2021.

Above you'll see a feature from Epic showing the crossover with Balenciaga and Unreal Engine in Fornite. There you'll see iterations of the running shoe/electric yellow hammer, backpack, glider, and all manner of 3D-scanned reference points that'll aim to make you desire the real clothing, in the real world.

This feature does as much to highlight the event and the co-branding as it does show the power of 3D scanning and texture-matching in Unreal Engine. With the power of this gaming engine, a very physical brand like Balenciaga can express a near-real iteration of their work in the digital realm. This move represents another leap toward a real-world metaverse. Now, if only Pokemon GO ran on Unreal Engine, right?

Above you'll see one more video focusing on this new collaboration between Epic Games for Fortnite and Balenciaga. This update will not only allow players in the game to wear clothing they might never otherwise dream of donning, but it'll make clear the potential for future collaborations with largely physical-dependent companies – neat stuff!