Ali-A interview: ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over being in Fortnite’

metro.co.uk:

GameCentral speaks with Ali-A about becoming a Fortnite skin, YouTube’s next generation, and the difficulties of sharing your personal life.

If you’ve searched for anything related to Fortnite on YouTube, there’s a high chance you’ve stumbled across Ali-A. The 28-year-old British YouTuber, real name Alastair Aiken, has become one of the biggest content creators for Fortnite since it was released in 2017, with over 17 million subscribers on his main channel. Like Ninja before him, his dedication to the title has manifested into an actual recreation of himself being implanted into the game’s universe.

Launched last week, Ali-A’s Fortnite skin is the latest addition to the Icon Series – a series of cosmetics based around celebrities, artists, and influencers. Since it began in 2020, with Ninja’s debut outfit, the line-up has become fascinatingly chaotic – ranging from other content creators like LazarBeam and TheGrefg to basketball legend LeBron James, singer Ariana Grande, and England footballer Harry Kane.

Ali-A’s inclusion marks the first time a UK YouTuber has been recognised. While it’s an important moment of acknowledgement for someone who has built his career compiling tips and covering Fortnite’s relentless updates, the process of making the skin a reality involved its fair share of work too – with Ali-A’s back-and-forth collaboration with Epic Games starting last year.

‘I was super hands-on with it,’ Ali-A says. ‘I had a clear vision from the beginning which really helped. I even actually presented to Epic Games a small slideshow – it wasn’t very impressive – but just ideas I had come up with and how I thought it’d be really cool to be represented within the game. For me there are two extremes, you can go for a