Why Lego sees its gaming future in Fortnite
Lego has a storied history in the world of video games with a massive back catalogue that dwarfs even some of the biggest publishers in the world. From licenced classics like Lego Star Wars to more recent games based solely on the Lego brand like Lego 2K Drive, the variety is impressive and there have been far more hits than misses.
But now the Lego strategy is changing, with Fortnite its new key area of focus after The Lego Group's parent company Kirkbi pumped $1 billion into Epic Games back in 2022.
After almost two years of partnership between the two companies, the fruits of the deal are finally starting to show. Lego Fortnite launched late last year and proved to be incredibly popular, even beating the traditional Battle Royale in concurrent players during its launch period. Now the two companies have launched Lego Islands in Fortnite, a platform that allows anyone to use Lego assets to create games within Fortnite Creative or Unreal Engine For Fortnite, provided they stick to Lego's family-friendly rules.
"The vision for the two companies is very similar," says Kari Vinther Nielsen, Head of Play & Creator Growth at Lego Game. "I think Epic Games is a leader when it has to do with digital play, whereas we [Lego] are a leader when it has to do with physical play, so we're building really nicely on top of each other's capabilities."
The launch of the Lego experiences in Fortnite signals a new era for the company's video game portfolio, with the focus now shifting to supporting both Lego and Epic-created experiences and also those that come from the wider community through the tools available. The hope is that some of the Lego-based games devised by the Fortnite community will offer truly new experiences in the Lego universe that have never been available before, and would likely never have been considered in the old way of working.
"We're excited to see what the creators will do with [Lego UEFN tools] because they're going to do things that we hadn't thought of
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