ARTE Riff Mountain Dev Diary 3 : the characters
Welcome to ARTE Riff Mountain: in this third Dev Diary, the episode shines a light on a key pillar of the experience… its characters, and the voices that bring them…

It’s official: at Gamescom 2025, SoWhen? and ARTE are releasing the exclusive teaser for their immersive coproduction — an interactive, music-driven creation designed for fans of metal, gaming, and intense experiences.
The teaser is available starting today, simultaneously with its reveal at Gamescom.
Get ready to enter a world like no other.
Once every 666 years, The Riff Mountain rises from the earth, granting access to supernatural power through a tightly sealed portal.
To cross it, players must summon the strength of metal.
Through multiple challenges and puzzles, they collect decibels, the precious fuel of a massive machine built by generations of metalheads. All this energy is then offered to the Riff Divinity — a towering mechanical statue, the only entity capable of opening the interdimensional portal.


But deep divisions within the metal community have given rise to four rival clans, each determined to claim that power in their own way.
Players will choose their clan, activate their aura, and dive into a series of quests and trials in the very heart of the mountain.
Blending myth, gameplay, and music, ARTE Riff Mountain is a collective and immersive narrative, where each player helps write a legend — driven by the power of metal.
On the Fortnite island The Riff Mountain, players are thrown into an experience that is accessible, deeply immersive, and also playful, inclusive, and joyfully nostalgic — like a theme park for metal lovers and storytellers alike.
In this massive world filled with nods to Hellfest and metal subcultures, players can:
And enjoy many more surprises to come…


This project was born from the meeting of ARTE’s ambition to launch its very first experience on Fortnite and SoWhen?’s creative and technological expertise in exploring this new space for artistic and social expression.
Together, ARTE and SoWhen? extend the Hellfest universe — of which ARTE is a long-standing partner — beyond the physical festival and into Fortnite.
Thanks to UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite), we imagined and built a fully immersive world — intense, richly detailed, and guided by a bold artistic direction — where players become the protagonists of a story they discover and shape… to the pulse of metal.

In this experience, you don’t just play — you’re immersed in a world that evolves with you, where every interaction reveals another piece of the story.
You’ll uncover facts and anecdotes about metal music and Hellfest’s legacy.
This is a tribute to metal and gaming cultures, to their codes, their raw energy, and their passion for rich, immersive worlds.
An experience that goes far beyond traditional games or films.
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