^{Image: Garena}

One of Garena’s biggest collaborations yet has Justin Bieber perform an in-game concert. 

Garena is celebrating its highly popular battle royale game Freies Feuer fifth anniversary with a ton of festivities. In addition to a host of in-game events and activities, Garena has also announced a new partnership with musical artist Justin Bieber for an in-game performance. 

This will be Free Fire’s first-ever musical performance in-game, taking place on August 27. Justin Bieber will also drop an exclusive track during the fifth anniversary celebrations – but we have no word on whether this will happen during the concert itself or during the general festivities. In addition to the live concert, players will also get to check out an interactive set-up, custom musical emotes, a bunch of minigames and surprisingly, even perform on stage with Bieber’s in-game avatar. 

Musical performances taking place in multiplayer games aren’t anything new, but this is the first I’ve heard of players being able to perform alongside the artist on stage. Fortnite frequently had musical collaborations for big live events, before starting a regular in-game concert event series in its Party Royale mode. Now, musical performances take place in-game all the time, with digital avatars of various artists dropping in for a concert. 

Fortnite is just one example, though. A ton of multiplayer games double down on in-game concerts for live events. Roblox hosted Royal Blood for a rock and roll concert, and the game has seen performances from Lizzo and Lil Nas X since. Those are pretty big pulls, but it’s easy to see why these games would want to draw from the already established fanbases of big artists for collaborations. Most of the time, fans even get to keep cosmetics from live concert events – such as Fortnite’s Travis Scott skin – permanently, building up an artist’s brand in return. 

Garena promises more details on the concert and the rest of Free Fire’s fifth anniversary celebrations over the coming weeks. For now, Justin Bieber seems pretty excited about the collaboration. The artist says:

I’m excited to partner with Garena Free Fire to have this opportunity to entertain my fans across the globe. This collaboration with Free Fire has allowed us to explore various dimensions in which we can integrate my music with games and I can’t wait for everyone to enjoy what we have worked hard on behind the scenes.

In June, Bieber announced on mehrere Social-Media-Plattformen that he had been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, leaving half of his face paralysed. He has since cancelled upcoming concerts due to his current condition, until he has time to recover. His in-game appearance in Free Fire is likely a less taxing way to drop a new single during recovery.