Lionel Messi has been affiliated with many, many sponsorship or endorsement deals in his iconic career because of his sheer level of popularity. He’s currently endorsing major brands like Adidas, Pepsi and Lay’s, with his sponsorship deals themselves bagging him millions in revenue and adding to his riches.
It now looks like the Inter Miami star might be close to entering the gaming world as well. That is because rumours are swirling about him being introduced as a playable skin in the popular online game Fortnite.
For those unknowing, Fortnite is an online battle royal game where a player has to out-survive 99 other players to win a single game. It currently has six different game modes and has become popular for introducing different celebrities or pop culture icons as skins. The game has already introduced a number of prominent footballers as skins, including one of Neymar and also of Harry Kane.
It now appears that the developers are looking to introduce the Leo Messi skin as their latest addition to try and gain attention of football fans. There is no confirmation of the exact details of the skin, but if their past work with footballers are to be considered, Messi’s Icon-Series Outfit should be an animated version of him probably wearing an Argentina kit.
Normally, players entering the battle royal are given a pickaxe, a glider and a back bling. To make Messi’s outfit coming off as unique’, the developers might give him a customized version of a pickaxe as well as design the glider and back bling in his country’s colors.
He might even get a different form of ‘kicks’ for players to use based on his real-life striking of a football. There are already multiple fan edits of how Messi can look like in Fortnite thanks to the help of AI, but a confirmed ‘leak’ has not yet hit social media.
Due to his sheer popularity and with developers knowing his skin will sell like hot cake, they’ll definitely give a high pricing for it’s launch. The exact date for the release of the Messi skin is still not confirmed and the game developers have not provided any information about it either.
On top of the Messi skin, there is also the chance for Fortnite to add football celebrations as their character ‘Emotes’. For those unknowing, an emote is a way of celebrating success or mocking a fallen opponent on Fortnite.
Most of their emotes are based on dance steps or viral moves from the internet. Many footballers have being inspied by Fortnite dance moves, be it Antoine Griezmann’s ‘loser’ celebration or Jeremy Doku doing the ‘griddy’ step.
Recently, Fortnite developers teased adding football celebrations into their game as they asked their users ‘We’re looking for a new emote for celebrating! Have you seen any exciting goal celebrations lately?’. As a result, speculation is now adrift on some the viral goal celebrations that can be introduced into the game soon.
There is, of course, a big chance that Cristiano Ronaldo’s ‘SIUUU’ celebration is one of the first ones added. There is also a chance that the Messi skin is accompanied with his own trademark emote. It could perhaps be his ‘pointing to the sky’ celebration or perhaps even the ‘hands in the ears’ one he did against the Netherlands in the 2022 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals.
Fortnite’s developers are still trying to keep the Messi outfit and possible celebration plans under wraps, as they want it to be a surprise. Going by all speculation, it looks likely that the Argentine GOAT will soon be entering the Fortnite metaverse, and his fans can start winning matches by using his persona.
