Lindsey McGinnis
You won’t need to book a plane ticket or join a waiting list to visit the world’s newest Holocaust museum – but you will need an avatar.
Soon to be embedded in the open-world map of the online video game Fortnite, the virtual Voices of the Forgotten Museum highlights heroes who fought back against the Nazis.
Fortnite is not an obvious location for a museum about genocide; the popular battle royal game is probably known best for its extensive suite of goofy, gesticulating characters. It’s a place where you can find Batman duking it out with a sentient banana peel, and then swinging his arms in a viral victory dance known as the griddy.
But with an average of nearly 240 million monthly players, Fortnite also finds itself at the frontier of the metaverse. Developer Epic Games has hosted a slew of successful live events, including an Ariana Grande concert, and wants to add some educational heft to their growing virtual neighborhood.
Critics say Fortnite is not the appropriate place to tackle such fraught history. Some cringe at the memory of Epic Games’ previous attempts to broach serious subjects, like its disastrous Martin Luther King Jr. Day event a few years ago, when players ran around a re-creation of 1963 Washington, doing disrespectful or outright racist stunts.
But architect Luc Bernard suggests that as antisemitism and misinformation rise and museumgoing declines, maybe it’s time to rethink the brick-and-mortar model – even if it opens the door for discomfort.
“People take selfies at Auschwitz and play Pokémon Go at Holocaust monuments,” he told Axios. “If you live in fear of that happening, then you would hide away anything about the Holocaust.”
He says they’ve learned from experience. The museum will be programmed as a single-player experience, and dancing will be disabled.
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