Fortnite Now Has an Official Moon Mission, No Battle Royale But Still Insanely Fun

The game developer does this through several methods. The first and easiest to apply is changing the game map every now and then to create the illusion people are playing a different game on a regular basis.

Then, it continuously releases new skins (there are close to 1,800 available already) and gear for the in-game characters people use for their deadly dealings: there are 21 weapons to choose from in the current season, over 1,000 back blings, and countless ways to greet your opponents.

The third and perhaps the most lucrative way to keep people interested is through partnerships with music stars, various companies (including carmakers), and, as of this week, even space agencies.

Because of the popularity of the game organizations and famous people are dying to get their names and products inside Fortnite, and that's exactly what the European Space Agency just did, in an effort "to reach a huge audience, to tell them about the agency and to share with them our passion for space."

ESA's target in this Fortnite collab is to sell the Moon, or more specifically its plans to establish a base at the satellite's south pole.

The space agency's mission is available as a map and storyline separate from the main Fortnite one. It's named Lunar Horizons, and calls upon players to take on the roles of future astronauts in an imagined mission up there.

The map does not require them to shoot each other until there's only one standing, but it does need their resource-gathering and building skills. That's because the action takes place on the surface of the Moon, and the aim of the players is to collect resources and use them to build a lunar habitat.

You probably all know the normal map in Fortnite is in no way a copy that exists in the real world. Well, Lunar Horizons is quite the opposite, as the surface of the Moon was recreated by Epic Games using data provided by the ESA Human and Robotic Exploration team, and it includes modeling of the place's reduced gravity.

That, as you'll see, has some really interesting effects on how the player's characters move – although, by the looks of it, some aspects of walking look unaffected by the diminished gravity – at least that's how it looks like with the game played by the hands of ESA's trainee astronauts.

The habitat the players are required to build has been created by an architectural firm called Hassell – the crew behind many of the world's most buildings, including the Doha Grand Terminal in Qatar – and that's immediately obvious as their logos are all over the place once it's ready.

Just to give you an idea of how serious the firm was about the project, consider the fact it actually went on and built a scale model of the in-game structure.

The map of the Moon includes not only the lunar soil and the habitat but also Argonaut, a lander ESA is getting ready to launch by the end of the decade. The hardware has been designed using digital models of the real thing. There's even a six-wheeled rover on location, as well as some other strange-looking vehicles that move under their own power, but their nature was not explained by the people who made this map.

The cherry on the cake, however, must be the image of planet Earth appearing every now and then in the background, visible in a way that's not unlike how it looks like when seen the Moon.

We're promised the Lunar Horizons experience goes beyond the simple exploration of the Moon and the construction of the habitat. ESA promises that as you play you'll be treated to "amazing facts about real-life European Moon missions, the wonders of space, and the work of ESA."

ESA recommends that people team up in the game to achieve their goals, and by the looks of it, that seems about right. I mean, just have a look at the video attached below this text – a how-it's-made type of deal – and try to catch glimpses of a small army of players working their virtual behinds on the surface of the Moon to get their habitat ready. Fun, right?

The Lunar Horizons Moon mission launched earlier this week, and it is already available to play. You can find it by searching Lunar Horizons in the Discover section of the Fortnite game, or in a more direct way by using the code 3207-0960-6428.