The latest music video from K-pop stars Blackpink has the band dropping onto a battle royale island. As part of a recent collaboration with PUBG Mobile — which recently featured its first-ever in-game concert — Blackpink released a new video that takes place inside of the game’s world. It features virtual avatars of the band as they sing in post-apocalyptic landscapes and ride motorcycles across abandoned highways. The song itself, called “Ready For Love,” was teased during the group’s virtual concert appearance.
The virtual concert and video follow in the footsteps of other in-game performances, most notably those in Fortnite, which has featured the likes of Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. But it’s also part of a slowly burgeoning trend of music merging with virtual worlds. League of Legends developer Riot, for instance, has multiple virtual music projects — including the K-pop quartet K/DA and the hip-hop group True Damage — which releases albums and performs as holograms at live events. Virtual influencer Miquela once debuted a music video at Lollapalooza, and PUBG parent company Krafton has been teasing a virtual human named Ana it hopes to turn into a pop star.
As for Blackpink and PUBG Mobile, the collaboration isn’t quite over. The in-game concert — dubbed “The Virtual” — is still running through this weekend. Players in North and South America can check it out until July 30th, while the rest of the world has until the 31st.
