Dinner is ready. Your teen is mid-game in Fortnite. Dilemma. Online games can’t be paused. A live match with up to 100 players doesn’t have a pause button. For your teen, walking away means abandoning their squad, losing their progress – and in the eyes of many, social ruin. The result is a daily standoff that plays out in millions of households worldwide.

Norwegian agency, Try, and telco, Telia, solved the problem for them with an attention-grabbing campaign involving a hired ex-gamer “assassin”. Here’s the story:

In July 2019, a 16-year-old Norwegian walked onto the stage at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York and won the Fortnite World Cup Duos alongside his partner Aqua. The prize: US$3 million. His name was Emil “Nyhrox” Bergquist Pedersen, and overnight he became one of the most recognised esports players to come out of Scandinavia.

Then he stepped away. No more tournaments, no more competitive grind. Nyhrox went quiet until now. Nyhrox is back in Fortnite, but this time, he’s not chasing a Victory Royale for himself. He’s been hired by parents. His job: enter their kids’ games and eliminate them before dinner gets cold.

The concept by Try is called Dinner Assassin. Its premise is simple. Parents go to telia.no, submit their child’s in-game username, and book Nyhrox. He enters the match, finds the kid, and ends the game, so they can attend dinner with their family.

The service was completely free and available for a limited time.

“I’ve spent years winning in Fortnite. I got to use those skills to help families actually sit down and eat together. My mum laughed when she heard about it. She knows exactly what it’s like trying to get a gamer to the dinner table,” Nyhrox stated. 

In Norway, a recent survey found that 75% of parents with children under 16 feel their kids spend too much time in front of screens. According to the Norwegian Media Authority, more than seven out of ten teenagers aged 13–14 have over two hours of daily screen time.

“Every parent knows the ‘I can’t pause it’ moment,” stated Camilla Watz Johannessen, head of brand and sustainability at Telia. “We didn’t want to lecture anyone. We wanted to solve it in a way that both parents and kids can actually appreciate.”

Over 60 families booked Nyhrox to take out their kids in Fortnite within a couple of days of the campaign.

Since it’s virtually almost impossible to find a specific player in a regular 100-player Battle Royale lobby, Nyhrox runs the eliminations through Fortnite’s Creative Mode. He adds the child’s username, invites them into a private lobby, and they go one-on-one.

How long does it take? That depends on how good the opponent is, Nyhrox commented. “But let me put it this way: the parents ordered game over, and that’s what they get. “Gaming gave me a lot, friends, career, experiences, but balance matters. It’s the same whether you play football or Fortnite. There’s nothing wrong with logging off to eat with your family.”

Why is a telco doing this? Telia is one of the largest telecom operators in the Nordic and Baltic region, providing mobile, broadband, and digital services to millions of customers in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. In Norway, Telia has built a dedicated position around what they call “screen health”, a multi-year initiative aimed at helping families navigate digital life. Previous efforts include the Pauseboksen (a physical box where families deposit their phones during meals), a free parenting course on screen habits, and a podcast series on children and media featuring Norwegian public figures. Dinner Assassin is the latest addition and by far the most attention-grabbing.

The Try agency campaign was run with Mediacom as media partner, in collaboration with Samsung.