A 150-year-old, non-profit org using the latest tech in a new way. Hijacking the biggest game in the world. And flipping the rules on its head to communicate the organization’s mission experientially to an unreachable audience.

Founded over 150 years ago, International Red Cross has led humanitarian efforts in every major war since its creation, delivering life-saving aid to 229 million people last year alone. But there’s whole generations of young people utterly oblivious to its crucial work.

We needed to find an authentic, organic way to introduce this generation to the critical life-saving organization and not only gain awareness but spark interest in participating to help those in need around the globe.

With a $0 budget, we had to get creative and rely on our partners to donate their time, brains, and brawn to this crucial life-saving effort.

We worked with the top game builders to create a whole new game within Fortnite, completely probono. These builders had the skills to create a complex, never-been-done game style—and they had the gamer-insider knowledge to create an amazing gaming experience that would resonate with our target audience.

We hijacked the biggest game in the world to bring the International Red Cross’s mission to a whole new audience. We flipped the rules of Fortnite so that, for the first time ever, players win by saving lives instead of taking them.

But changing the game in an authentic way meant we had to build Liferun with the help of the gaming community. We did not want to create a branded interruption, but a legit game that people would line up for, waiting for the drop to play. So, we partnered with the best amateur game builders in the world to translate our real-life missions into Fortnite. As Red Cross workers, players race to complete action-packed missions and can even donate in-game.

Liferun allowed players to experience the other side of war and created a whole new generation of heroes.

March 2019: Concept developed

April 2019: Team Evolve, amateur game builders, joined our team

May 2019: Together we developed the concept within the Fortnite Creative Mode platform

June 2019: Game development started

January 2020: Game launched

Any of Fortnite’s 350 million players can use a unique code to log in to the Liferun game on the Fortnite Creative Mode platform, for free.

Starting at the headquarters of the International Red Cross, they learn that they are Red Cross workers with four real-life missions to accomplish. And for the first time ever, in order to win they’ll need to save lives instead of take them. The winner receives the first-ever Fortnite Peace Prize, to exemplify the International Red Cross as the only organization ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times. Pop-ups of information about the International Red Cross are found in relevant spots throughout the game. And during all the action, they’ll have the option to donate real money to the International Red Cross.

The four missions are:

Find and save lives in a war-torn city

Find and de-arm mines

Find and rebuild vital infrastructure

Deliver lifesaving supplies to isolated communities

Liferun made the International Red Cross’s mission a first-hand playable experience and brought it to 350 million players, in every country in the world, on every gaming platform, for free.

Online growth of 37% for the International Red Cross (includes engagement, follows, site traffic, donations). Liferun is its best performing campaign to date.

For the first time ever, gamers were able to become real-life supporters in a virtual battlefield by donating to the Red Cross within the game itself.

There were over 500 articles written worldwide in the first week.

25,000+ people viewed the tournament concurrently.

Thousands more around the world played Liferun within hours of launch.

over 30 million impressions on Twitter and 6 million impressions on Weibo in the first week.

Hundreds of articles acknowledged the need that Liferun met for a game that highlights the importance of the other kind of war hero: the kind that saves.