Trailer For STAR WARS: SMUGGLER’S GAMBIT Which Brings Disneyland's Millennium Falcon Ride Into Fortnite

Hondo Ohnaka has found a new way to recruit smugglers, and this time you don’t even need to be anywhere near Batuu.

Disney has revealed Star Wars: Smuggler’s Gambit, a new Fortnite adventure that connects directly with Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort.

The first-of-its-kind crossover allows players to carry parts of their theme park adventure into Fortnite, while Fortnite players can also begin the mission from home.

Announced during D23, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run | Fortnite uses the familiar attraction as the starting point for a larger adventure with Hondo. Guests can collect crates during their smuggling run aboard the Millennium Falcon, with those crates unlocking rewards that carry over into Fortnite.

The digital side of the experience takes place in Smuggler’s Gambit, a new Fortnite island developed in-house by Disney Games and Digital Entertainment in collaboration with Lucasfilm.

Set around Mersa Veta Station on the planet Ord Ryla, the island drops players into another dangerous corner of the Outer Rim. You can team up with friends for co-op missions, fight pirates and Imperial remnants, deal with hostile wildlife, collect new gear, and build your reputation.

Naturally, Hondo is involved, so there’s always a pretty good chance a straightforward job will become much more complicated.

Disney Games worked closely with Lucasfilm to develop new characters, locations, and stories specifically for the experience while making sure everything still feels like it belongs in the Star Wars galaxy.

Walt Disney Imagineering was also part of the collaboration, helping create the connection between the Fortnite island and what guests encounter aboard Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

During a presentation on the Walt Disney Imagineering Center Stage, Ray Gresko, SVP and Head of Product & Development for Disney Games and Digital Entertainment, and Asa Kalama, Executive of Creative & Interactive Experiences at Walt Disney Imagineering, discussed how Unreal Engine 5 made the attraction customization possible and how the project grew through Disney’s collaboration with Lucasfilm.

Joined by Ashley Eckstein, the team explained that Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run | Fortnite is an early example of Disney connecting one of its physical theme park experiences with a persistent digital adventure.

Instead of the story ending when you climb out of the Falcon cockpit, you can pick it back up at home. Or you can begin on Ord Ryla in Fortnite before eventually experiencing the attraction in person.

That connection is the coolest part of the whole concept. Theme park attractions have traditionally been self-contained experiences. Here, Disney is experimenting with letting a ride become one piece of a larger interactive story.

Getting involved starts with accepting a special mission. Guests visiting the parks can do that while waiting in the attraction queue through the Disneyland app or My Disney Experience app.

Players can also accept the mission from the Smuggler’s Gambit island in Fortnite. Any guest logged into the Disneyland or My Disney Experience app can accept the mission.

There are Fortnite rewards waiting on the other side as well. Eligible guests who want to claim post-ride rewards, including a Forsworn Trooper Outfit, will need to link their MyDisney account with an Epic Games account, unless those accounts have already been connected. Guests who ride the attraction but aren’t eligible to link accounts can redeem a code in Fortnite to receive their reward instead.

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run | Fortnite has already launched, along with Star Wars: Smuggler’s Gambit on Fortnite.

The experience comes at no additional cost with valid theme park admission, while Fortnite remains free to download on PC, consoles, and mobile devices.

One minute you’re sitting inside the Millennium Falcon pulling off a job for Hondo, and later you can continue that adventure with your friends from your couch. This gives the attraction a life beyond the parks and turns Hondo’s latest questionable business opportunity into something much bigger.