Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of Activision Blizzard, has announced that its free-to-play team-based action game Overwatch 2 partnered with South Korean girl group Le Sserafim for an in-game collaboration.
The deal, which Blizzard says marks the game’s first musical artist collaboration, will see it working with Le Sserafim on the music video for their next single, Perfect Night. The video will debut on October 27.
A concept trailer for the music video already garnered 687,000 views on HYBE’s YouTube channel.
“We’re extremely excited to be working with Le Sserafim for our game’s first musical artist collaboration,” said Walter Kong, General Manager for Overwatch.
“Like the heroes of Overwatch, the Le Sserafim members are amazing as individuals, but unstoppable when they come together.”
Le Sserafim members Kim Chae-won, Sakura, Huh Yun-jin, Kazuha, and Hong Eun-chae will make an appearance at BlizzCon on November 4 to perform Perfect Night at the end of the show.
“Like the heroes of Overwatch, the Le Sserafim members are amazing as individuals, but unstoppable when they come together.”
Walter Kong, Overwatch
Le Sserafim was formed by South Korean entertainment company Source Music in collaboration with HYBE. They debuted in May 2022 with the release of their first EP, Fearless. The girl group’s name is an anagram of the phrase “I’m fearless.”
The group achieved 1.38 million preorders for their first studio album Unforgiven, which was released in May of this year, according to HYBE.
Le Sserafim is among HYBE’s biggest revenue sources. The group has amassed nearly 9 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has more than 6.5 million followers on Instagram.
In announcing the latest collaboration, Blizzard released a teaser artwork for Overwatch 2 featuring Le Sserafim members reimagined as digital characters.
The partnership comes amid the rise of virtual bands in the era of the metaverse.
Just last week, Riot Games launched yet another virtual band featuring reimagined versions of League of Legends champions. Among the members of the new band called HEARTSTEEL is Baekhyun, member of the South Korean-Chinese boy band EXO.
Kakao Entertainment, the entertainment division of South Korean internet company Kakao Corp., also unveiled a four-member virtual K-Pop girl group called MAVE earlier this year through its Metaverse Entertainment joint venture with South Korean mobile game developer Netmarble.
A number of K-Pop groups have also held virtual concerts in gaming platforms including NCT 127, which hosted a free virtual concert on Roblox in January, and BLACKPINK, which held a virtual concert on PUBG Mobile.
Blizzard’s new venture comes just days after Microsoft completed its $68.7 billion acquisition of the company after clearing the hurdles with UK and US regulators.
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