Fortnite
"Fortnite Battle Royale" has also become a cultural online phenomenon, with several celebrities reporting they play the game, and athletes using "Fortnite" emotes as victory celebrations. A notable streaming event in March 2018, with streamer Ninja playing "Fortnite Battle Royale" alongside Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, broke viewership records for Twitch to date, and led to Epic arranging a "Fortnite Battle Royale" pro–am with 50 pairs of streamers and professional players matched with celebrities at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 in June 2018. Epic Games is working to develop organized eSports competitions around "Fortnite Battle Royale", including a "Fortnite" World Cup tournament in 2019.
Avengers: Infinity War
A week before the film's release, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was lit up each night for the film, counting down to its release. Marvel also featured tie-in events across seven of their mobile games to promote the film. In early May 2018, Marvel and Epic Games announced the "Infinity Gauntlet Limited Time Mashup" mode for "Fortnite Battle Royale", where players could find the Infinity Gauntlet hidden on the game map and become Thanos with added abilities. The Russo brothers were fans of "Fortnite" and approached Donald Mustard, the worldwide creative director of Epic Games, about the potential for a crossover between the properties. On November 20, 2018, Little, Brown and Company published "Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War: Thanos – Titan Consumed", written by Barry Lyga. Despite not existing within Marvel Studios' MCU canon, the novel explores the origins of Thanos before the events of the film. Lyga noted he spoke with Marvel Studios to get an "outline of who Thanos is and what he means to the movies", and "was given great latitude and a free hand [in some areas of the story], while in others I had to tip-toe very carefully through the MCU".