A bit over six years after it launched, battle royale sensation Fortnite simply broke its all-time one-day participant report — by going again in time. The launch of Fortnite OG, a particular season which brings again the sport’s authentic Chapter 1 map, drew an unbelievable 44.7 million gamers on Saturday, Nov. 4, who between them racked up 102 million hours of play. That’s in response to a submit on X (previously Twitter) from the official Fortnite account.
Strategy to begin issues off with an enormous bang
We’re blown away by the response to #FortniteOG. Yesterday was the most important day in Fortnite’s historical past with over 44.7 MILLION gamers leaping in and 102 MILLION hours of play.
To all Fortnite gamers, OG and new, THANK YOU!
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) November 5, 2023
In response to dwell stats tracker Fortnite.gg, the height variety of concurrent gamers on Saturday was 6.2 million — the very best quantity by far since developer Epic Video games made the dwell participant depend obtainable earlier this yr. That is a lot decrease than the 12.three million concurrent gamers Epic claimed for the “Astronomical” occasion with Travis Scott through the COVID lockdowns of April 2020.
The feat is much more outstanding when you think about that Fortnite stays unavailable on iOS units, and solely as a sideload through the Epic Video games app on Android, attributable to Epic’s ongoing authorized battle with cell platform holders over their retailer charges.
What’s introduced all these gamers again? Partially, nostalgia for 5 years in the past. Fortnite OG recreates the sport because it was because it was in July 2018 throughout Chapter 1, Season 5, Tilted Towers and all. The remainder of OG will take an accelerated run by the remainder of Chapter 1 on the price of 1 or two seasons per week. Season 6 returns on Nov. 9, seasons 7 and eight on Nov. 16, and seasons 9 and X on Nov. 23. There are additionally curated picks of “traditional, mashup, and recent” gadgets obtainable through the OG Go and OG Store.
Already, gamers are clamoring for OG to turn out to be a everlasting mode for Fortnite, whereas Epic could also be reconsidering working it as such a truncated season. Albeit in a unique style, with a unique enterprise mannequin, Blizzard has had nice success working World of Warcraft Basic in parallel with the fashionable sport, though even Basic’s viewers has cut up into two separate cohorts: those that stick with the unique, traditional period, and people who like to maneuver by previous expansions, just a bit sooner than the primary time.
Fortnite has now joined WoW in proving that within the ephemeral world of on-line gaming, the place nothing ever stays the identical, nostalgic callbacks might be massive field workplace. Even when the nostalgia they’re drawing on is for less than 5 years in the past.
