Epic Games announced that a new fashion collaboration with Balenciaga is coming to Fortnite, its hugely popular battle royale game. The new drop dresses four Fortnite original characters in new Balenciaga clothing. However, the timing appears to be a little strange given Balenciaga’s current cultural appropriation controversy and Fortnite‘s recent Martin Luther King Jr. event.
Fortnite is well-known for bringing any and everything that it can into its metaverse. From Ferraris and Ariana Grande to Thanos and Superman, it’s not surprising to see a major fashion brand pop up in the item. The collaboration features new outfits, back bling, and cosmetics based on the brand. Fortnite has added a community-made hub where players can enter a virtual Balenciaga store.
The Balenciaga collaboration comes only weeks after the game’s Martin Luther King Jr. March Through Time event, which smacks of poor timing. Balenciaga recently came under fire for releasing a pair of sweatpants that spurred accusations of cultural appropriation. Marquita Gammage, professor of Africana Studies at California State University, Northridge, told CNN that these pants, modeled after the sagging trend, are an exploitation of “Black culture, with the hopes of securing major profits.”
Sagging pants have often been used to criminalize Black Americans. The fact that the item was sold at $1,190 and dubbed “high-end fashion” drew wide criticism from those who saw it as an act of cultural appropriation.
Fortnite heavily promoted its March Through Time event, which strove to educate its young players about the Civil Rights Movement. However, hard decisions have to be made if corporations are going to take steps to show support for POC communities. Those decisions can include reassessing relationships with brands like Balenciaga.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.