Biden Now Has A Custom Fortnite Map
Since its Season 7 launch in 2018, Fortnite Creative has given fans of the battle royale a variety of immersive new areas to explore. From spooky Halloween-themed worlds to specialized racing and zone wars and an Among Us-inspired gun game, there are loads of fun and challenging levels for players to check out. Anyone can make their own map — even a U.S. presidential candidate.
Just ahead of election day, Vice President Joe Biden's campaign released its own custom Fortnite map. The map, titled "Build Back Better with Biden," is a solo play featuring a number of mini-games related to the Democratic candidate's political platform.
According to Mashable, the map is located in Reboot City and has a number of features designed to encourage gamers to vote. Following the signage and texting "Fortnite" to 30330, for example, will provide you with information about how to vote in the 2020 election, including in-person voting and ballot drop-offs. There are billboards that read "Team Joe," as well as the "No Malarkey" station, named after one of Biden's campaign slogans.
The Fortnite "Build Back Better with Biden" map comes with a number of tasks related to the Biden/Harris campaign. There's the environmentalist themed "Restore the Aviator River" in which players must clean the waters of industrial waste, and also "Install Three Scranton Towers" which will help "ensure every American has access to Broadband."
There are even two missions related to Biden's German Shepherd pups, Champ and Major. One is titled "Help Build a New Research Facility at Champ's Construction Site," and the other is "Help Make Major's Auto Factory Run Clean." Champ's mission involves constructing a research facility at a "Historically Black College," and Major's requires the player to "install new high efficiency AC units and unwrap the solar panels on the roof."
Other quests in the custom Biden map include collecting all the ice cream flavors at "Joe's Famous Ice Cream Shop" and gathering Kamala Harris's sneakers which can be found throughout the environment.
The campaign hopes to encourage a new generation of young people to vote — specifically gamers. The Biden/Harris director of digital partnerships, Christian Tom, told Mashable: "We are continuing to meet people everywhere they are online and offline with innovative and thoughtful activations ... We designed the custom 'Build Back Better with Biden' Fortnite map to do just that — engaging players in a substantive, approachable, and fun way to reach and mobilize voters."
This isn't the first time the Biden/Harris campaign has reached out to young voters via video games — "Biden's Island" launched for Animal Crossing: New Horizons in October, accessible to players through Luna's dream bed. While visiting the island, players can explore a number of interesting sites and even encounter a version of the man himself wandering around in a pair of aviator shades.
Joe Biden isn't the only politician hopping onto the gamer bandwagon — New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) set a Twitch record after streaming Among Us live on Oct. 20. Like Biden, AOC is an Animal Crossing veteran – she even shared her plans to visit random islands and post on their bulletin boards via Twitter back in May.
For decades, candidates running for office have searched for various ways to get young people to vote, and it seems that video games have become the newest tactic. "It was the latest and most visible example of a concerted effort by politicians, the majority of them left-leaning, to tap into the voting power of video gamers, a group that includes a vast, young demographic that has stayed away from the polls in past elections," asserted The Washington Post's Noah Smith regarding AOC's Twitch stream.
Smith also quoted Josh Harder, the Democratic Representative from California's 10th district, who stated: "The traditional methods we have to reach out to voters aren't going to work this year ... We're going to have to be a lot more creative about reaching out to voters and part of that is going to be connecting to them virtually."
Whether or not using video games as a political platform is worth the effort remains to be seen — but if the results of the 2020 presidential election are any indication, then gamers may encounter more (or fewer) politicians actively playing their favorite games online. For anyone who wants to give the "Build Back Better with Biden" map a try, the code is 0215-4511-1823.