Fortnite and Hatsune Miku just confirmed their collaboration – and with it, another rumor was just debunked.
Last December, we reported on a rumor that NewJeans was originally planned to appear next on Epic Games’ global live service phenomenon. Before that rumor got confirmed, dataminers found that there was new evidence that Hatsune Miku was now going into Fortnite. The data also suggested that Miku was actually replacing NewJeans.
And then a few hours ago, the Hatsune Miku English language Twitter account asked:
“Miku’s backpack is missing, has anybody seen it?”
The official Fortnite Festival account then replied:
“Finders keepers? Don’t worry, we’ll hold it for you backstage!”
TheMusicEssentials then shared the basic details of this collaboration. Miku is joining Season 7 of Fortnite Festival, starting this January 14. There will be two Miku skins; with the Festival Pass being her iconic grey and black blouse and skirt, completed with her green tie.
The Neko Style skin replaces her skirt and thigh highs with suspenders and pants, and gives her cat paw gloves and cat ears. She also gets a buttoned school uniform type top with short sleeves and a short red tie. This skin will be available in the Item Shop.
There will also be 7 jam tracks, and clearly the backpack is playing the MacGuffin for some treasure hunting for the festival. We’re sure the Miku fans are excited, but as we hinted at above, this may also be bad news for another fandom.
ShiinaBR was sharing some of these details on Twitter as well. He was asked about the rumored NewJeans collaboration, and this was what he said:
“Yeah as I previously said, NewJeans either delayed or fully cancelled”
As reported by The Korea Herald, it was a matter of public knowledge that NewJeans’ scheduled activities under Ador, their kpop company, have ended. The public is now speculating on the girl group’s next steps, because they announced that they had ended their contracts with Ador.
Without getting too deep into the details, NewJeans’ decision to leave Ador has a shaky legal foundation. Ador has already gone to court to insist that the contract is still in effect.
But of course, one could argue that Fortnite doesn’t count as a scheduled activity, since NewJeans won’t actually be performing live. Even though some fans found data that suggested Epic was preparing for NewJeans, since they never announced it, they may not have even had a collaboration to be cancelled.
But assuming that there was a planned collaboration, Epic may have simply approached Miku because it would have been easier to work with Epic’s owner, Crypton Future, and their video game licensee Sega, than to deal with the legal quagmire of continuing that NewJeans collaboration.
And yes, maybe it’s possible that NewJeans could still appear in Fortnite in the future. But with the legal troubles coming to NewJeans and their erstwhile manager, Min Hee–Jin, we would not hold our breath.
For now, Fortnite players can look forward to dancing with leeks and long green pigtails.
