The popular video game has added a new gameplay mode called Fortnite Festival, where players team up to “play” popular songs by pushing buttons on their controllers. They can then use those songs as emotes when they play the traditional battle royale version of the game. Fortnite Festival is a partnership between Epic Games — the creators of Fortnite — and Harmonix, which builds the Rock Band games.
And this week, “Closer,” by the Chainsmokers featuring Halsey, became one of the featured “jam tracks” that drop weekly.
“Pull the sheets right off the corner/Of the mattress that you stole/From your roommate back in Boulder/We ain't ever gettin' older,” declares the refrain of the song, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for twelve weeks.
The 2016 song by Alex Pall and Drew Taggart still gets students at the University of Colorado going, though others are vocally exhausted by the melody’s popularity. Taggert told students at Syracuse University in 2020 that the song is based on his friends who went to CU, so at least there’s authenticity to it — but it still can be annoying when heard too many times.
“You go to the bars and pray that DJ Petey will just play something else, literally anything ANYTHING ELSE,” an anonymous student wrote on the Tab. “Your roommate has been begging everyone to listen to his mixtape? Give it a try. Your friend sent you a video of a cat burping the alphabet? Sounds great. Just dead silence? Probably better than listening to ‘Closer’ at this point.”
Still, the song has yet to die, and now a new generation will get to hear it in the online world, too.
Welcome to Boulder, Fortnite. The city is happy to exist inside of you.
“Boulder is a great place to live, work, and play … apparently in the digital world as well,” says Sarah Huntley, director of communication and engagement for the City of Boulder. “Having said that, the city does not condone stealing your roommate’s mattress, and if you happen to have an extra one, be sure to recycle it at the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials for just $27 — help save the world.”
Nick Evans, a freshman journalism student at CU, quickly noticed how the song’s inclusion in Fortnite inducted Boulder into the game’s extended universe. He plays occasionally with his brother and kept an eye on Festival mode after it added songs by Queens of the Stone Age, one of his favorite bands.
“It's a big joke on social media where people will make stretches and say, ‘This being in this game means McDonald's is in Call of Duty or something like that,’” Evans says. “Like this is canonical.”
The official announcement of this week's jam songs.
Fortnite Festival on Instagram
Along with Boulder, Pompeii is another real-life location that’s entered the Fortnite canon through Festival mode; the Bastille song by the same name is now included in the game.
Once people earn songs, they can also create mashups with them in the game. For example, Evans has earned the White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army” and can now select the drumbeat from that song and have Olivia Rodrigo sing over it.
“Me and my brother love doing that, because you can make really stupid songs by using The Weeknd’s voice but then the guitar of 'Thunder,' by Imagine Dragons, so it's a cool way to make mashups,” Evans says.
CU recently got a new Alienware Buffalo Esports and Gaming Lounge fitted with high tech for e-sports, so plenty of people at the school should enjoy hearing their location in Fortnite. For Charlie Gottlieb, who owns Grandmaster Games in Boulder, the Fortnite news is “neat” — but since his store deals mainly in physical board and card games, he doesn’t expect it will have a huge impact on its business.
Two other songs with Colorado connections are also now included in the game. The first is “Party Rock Anthem,” by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & Goonrock. This bop has historically played every fourth quarter during Denver Nuggets games while mascot Rocky tries to sink his famous backward, half-court shot, though this season has seen a shakeup that's left the tune on the back burner.
Also just added this week were three Blink-182 songs, including "All the Small Things" — which was the Colorado Avalanche’s unofficial anthem when the team won the NHL championship in 2022. It doesn’t get played after every game anymore, though, as people soured on it, arguing its play time shouldn’t have extended past the Avs’ Stanley Cup run.
It’s almost like the Chainsmokers predicted this, too.
“Stay and play that Blink-182 song/That we beat to death in Tucson,” requests one of the verses of “Closer.”
Now Fortnite players can enjoy both beat-to-death tunes while they try to vanquish their foes in battle.
