“I knew in the moment we saw UEFN for the first time that this was the tool of the future because it was going to give everybody the opportunity to create immersive, photorealistic worlds—and do that democratically,” says Panaia.Combined with the fact that you can bring in your own custom assets, UEFN is a powerful tool for building bespoke virtual worlds that can be totally different to the look and feel of Fortnite—but that you can still publish to Fortnite’s huge audience of millions of players.
For Nike, there was an instant feeling that this would be a game-changing opportunity. “That’s where people are already hanging out, building culture, playing,” explains Panaia. “It’s great for us to have a place so close to where all this culture is already being created, where there are millions of players around the world engaging on a daily basis.”
With Nike excited to see what they could do with UEFN, the Epic team made an introduction to a creative studio that could help them make it happen.
Beyond Creative have deep expertise building islands in Fortnite. They’ve previously created Fortnite islands for brands including Honda, NFL, and Chipotle, and are well versed in the Fortnite Creative toolset.
As a Fortnite studio, Beyond Creative also brought an understanding of what appeals to the Fortnite player base to the project.
Working alongside Epic’s London Innovation Lab, Beyond Creative set out to bring Nike’s vision for Airphoria to life.
The collaborative nature of UEFN enabled Nike to get hands-on in the creative process, exploring, iterating, and prototyping in a way they hadn’t been able to unlock on previous projects.
UEFN enables creators and developers to work on experiences together in real time, both from a player’s perspective, live in the environment, or as an editor, making edits while the player interacts with those changes. That presents the opportunity for direct feedback between teams and the ability to rapidly iterate or test out ideas.
There were a lot of sessions where Beyond Creative and Nike worked on the art direction together, capturing detailed visuals and adding finishing touches that would ensure the experience was truly on brand.
“We were only limited by our imagination,” says Panaia. “We developed a ton of custom assets, from graffiti, video, and NPCs; to the actual building and environments; to taking our products and bringing them into the world. All of that happened seamlessly.”
Source: Unreal Engine Blog