Earlier this month Springfield dropped into Epic Games’ Fortnite, bringing a little slice of The Simpsons to gamers around the world.
Alongside the virtual Springfield (which includes dozens of locations from the long-running series), the creative team from the show wrote a series of Simpsons shorts teeing up new features and drops. The shorts are viewable on Disney+, in Fortnite, and on the game’s social channels.
The result is a collaboration, between Disney and Epic and Simpsons producer Gracie Films that crosses platforms, gamers playing in the world of Springfield within Fortnite, Disney+ users watching Simpsons shorts filled with Fortnite easter egg and plot points, that, to hear Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman and writer Jeff Westbrook explain it, creates a cross-generational experience that is unlike many of the things that came before it.
Yes, even for a show like The Simpsons, which debuted its first episode some 36 years ago.
“I think The Simpsons is unique not just in the marketplace, but in the universe, in that we have three generations of fans, four generations, who have grown up or watched the show at some point,” Selman tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview. “And now, the fans who watched it in college have kids who are in college. No other show has that level of multi-generational emotional engagement with its fan base, no matter how you engaged or when you engaged, whether it was from seasons four to 10, or from 15 to 20. It is like the background of your life, the emotional journey of your life, is the show.
“And so when it came to brand partnerships, we have to exploit that,” he added with a smile.
“The Simpsons collaboration with Fortnite blended gameplay, storytelling and brand new content to celebrate the series and build an authentic connection across TV and gaming audiences,” says Adam Sussman, the president of Epic Games. “The experience captured the humor, heart, and cultural moments that have defined The Simpsons for 35 years.”
Selman, joined by fellow writer Jeff Westbrook, emphasized the collaborative nature of the effort, which sought to bring elements from the show and its world to Fortnite, and some of the game’s absurdity and characters to the show’s world.
There’s even a plotline that connects the animated shorts to the gameplay, with Homer using a Zero Point Shard (it’s a Fortnite reference) to create a better world.
“This has to be Homer’s emotions, Homer’s unique comedic personality driving the story of all this chaos and nonsense, but he he wants to make the world better with the magic crystal,” Selman says.
Watch the first installment below:
“There’s a lot of memes out there that young people see, and we’ve done our best to put those in as easter eggs, into the into the Fortnite game play,” Westbrook says. “A lot of it came down to our collaboration with Epic Games on this, they were super helpful in keeping us aware of what the gameplay possibilities were, and where we could stuff little easter eggs and where we could modify the environment, put little jokes here and there. So that was really useful to have them chipping in and helping with that kind of stuff.”
Indeed, both the shorts and Springfield Island in Fortnite are as loaded with gags as a typical Simpsons episode. Westbrook says that was by design.
“The Simpsons has always been about background jokes. If it’s at all possible, there’s five jokes in every scene, dialogue, something in the background, someone walking past,” Westbrook says. “So that all comes kind of naturally to us to try and work in, sign jokes, jokes on the blimp, any place that we see an opportunity to put a joke, we’re going to try and jam one in there, and Fortnite was all about that. They were all like, this is fantastic. Easter eggs everywhere. They came up with lots of great ones.”
The end result is at once classic Simpsons and something entirely new, filled with gags for fas of the show or fans of the game, a rare entertainment crossover that parents and kids can enjoy together. And lots of those families have, with Epic Games saying that more than 53 million players dropped into Springfield in the first two weeks of the season alone.
“[There is] the nostalgia factor of like, maybe I used to watch that show when I was in high school or in college or when I was six,” Selman says. “But then put into this game, it’s not just the gameplay which is fantastic and the jokes which are fantastic and the story which is fantastic, but there’s a nostalgia, emotion thing there as well.”
“It’s also always been a show with a lot of depth to it, like there’s lots and lots of characters that people know and love, and you can bring them in,” Westbrook adds. “There’s a lot of stuff with The Simpsons that you can work with, and I think that helps a little bit too. But it is really cool when you hear parents talking about how they sat with their kids to watch the same shows they’d watched when they were kids.”
And it underscores how the show, which has released new episodes in five different decades, is continuing to bring its controlled chaos to new places and platforms, thanks in this case to Disney’s partnership with Epic Games, which has included Marvel and Star Wars collaborations, as well as plans for an upcoming Disney-based interactive world.
“Fortnite | The Simpsons is not just a return to gaming for The Simpsons, it’s a redefining of how audiences experience stories across formats,” says Sean Shoptaw, executive vp of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment. “By bringing one of television’s most iconic franchises to Fortnite, a season written by the incredible creative team at Gracie Films, we’re inviting fans to experience storytelling and communities in a bold new way.”
“A big part of it too, is our collaboration with Disney,” Selman says. “Disney bought Fox’s intellectual property in 2019, and Disney has given us access to all these new playgrounds that are so fun to play in. We can exist in so many more dimensions now, it’s fantastic.”
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