McDonald's Transforms Its Menu Into a Loading Screen for Xbox

A cheesy potato bite pulled straight out of Fallout 76 is now sitting on a McDonald's tray in the UK and Ireland.

The chain has partnered with Xbox for the first time, folding six major game franchises into its "Side Missions" campaign.

The centerpiece of the effort is a menu built around Halo:

• Campaign Evolved
• Fallout 76
• Forza Horizon 6
• Overwatch
• World of Warcraft
• Candy Crush Saga

The new items launch across UK and Ireland restaurants on August 25, and each one borrows a detail from its source game.

Per GBN, the Black Pepper & Garlic McNuggets take their kick from Halo's moa bird.

Meanwhile, the Blamco Cheesy Potato Bites reference Fallout 76's in-game snack brand, and the Fiery Buffalo Dip carries World of Warcraft's Dragonbreath name.

Forza Horizon 6 gets a Sour Cherry Fizz drink based on the game's Japanese setting, while Candy Crush gets a Choco McFlurry and Overwatch gets a sugar donut tied to the character Kiriko.

The initiative builds on Side Missions, the campaign McDonald's UK and Ireland launched in July 2025 with creative agency Leo UK.

When the first campaign launched, Leo UK ECDs James Millers and Andrew Long called the project a "love letter" to every spontaneous run to McDonald's.

McDonald's UK and Ireland marketing director Matthew Reischauer added that the goal was to give fans "more ways to celebrate the journey of life."

What the Xbox Menu Unlocks

Beyond the food, the partnership makes its way to the McDonald's App, where Reward points unlock digital items for each game.

Players can claim a car voucher in Forza Horizon 6, a Sugar Bomb Bundle in Fallout 76, and a returning Red Hot Portable Bakery item in World of Warcraft.

They can also claim a Kiriko donut emote in Overwatch, a booster bundle in Candy Crush, and Master Chief armor in Halo.

Lastly, McDonald's says the restaurant experience will also include Easter eggs and hidden references pulled from each game.

This is McDonald's second run at gaming since Side Missions debuted.

The initial campaign delivered app-based daily challenges, in-game-style rewards, and creator collaborations with streamers such as Angry Ginge.

Notably, the latest effort also lands the same week Xbox marks 25 years since its console launch, giving the fast-food chain a bigger cultural moment to plug into.

Gaming's Scale Explains the Menu

Other brands have chased that same anniversary energy.

IKEA and Xbox teased a furniture line inspired by a quarter century of controller design, with a full reveal set for Gamescom in Cologne on August 26.

McDonald's has also been stacking pop culture tie-ins outside of gaming.

In the US, the chain rolled out a Hello Kitty and Friends x Godzilla Happy Meal with eight toys blending Sanrio characters and kaiju.

All efforts share the same playbook of attaching the menu to whatever fandom is already generating conversation.

Newzoo's 2025 Global Games Market Report puts the worldwide player base at roughly 3.58 billion people, or 61.5% of the global population with internet access.

Global game revenue also sits at $188.8 billion, and console alone pulled in $45.9 billion of that, becoming the fastest-growing platform segment tracked.

This is a customer base large enough to justify a fast-food menu made entirely around six franchises.

A few takeaways stand out for marketers watching a QSR chain build a menu around a console brand:

• Translate game mechanics into physical products: A logo is not enough, and turning an in-game item or flavor into something a customer can order gives fans a tangible way to interact with a world they know.
• Layer app rewards on top of your offerings: Splitting the payoff between a real-life meal and a digital unlock gives two separate reasons to visit and to open the app.
• If the shoe fits, reuse an existing campaign platform: Building the Xbox tie-in inside Side Missions lets the chain bounce off the previous effort's hype and keep its established gaming-themed language and audience.

App redemption data from this run tells McDonald's which franchise partner is worth calling again before it commits to another six-way collaboration.

Our Take: What Happens When the Menu Runs Out?

We keep asking ourselves what a customer actually walks away with once this campaign's promotion window closes.

A Sour Cherry Fizz or a Kiriko donut emote disappears the moment the calendar flips, and nothing about eating a cheesy potato bite makes someone a Fallout fan who wasn't one already.

What McDonald's is really selling here is a shared reference point.

It's having six weeks of menu items that let a Halo player and a Candy Crush player order from the same counter, and both feel seen.

This angle works if the chain keeps its references true to the source material, and keeps finding fresh worlds to borrow from.

The food itself was only part of the draw.

We would watch what McDonald's does with the app data from this run, since which franchise moved trays will tell them more about their audience than any focus group could.

Check out our top experiential marketing agencies that design campaigns to spark joy among audiences.