Image: Epic Games
The return of Fortnite’s original map has set a new all-time concurrent player record for the game.
Epic Games’ battle royale game Fortnite has hit a new all-time peak in concurrent players, with the tracker fortnite.gg reporting 6.1 million concurrent players as of last weekend. This sudden surge in players can be pinned to the return of Fortnite’s original map as part of Chapter 4’s debut, in a nostalgic season of content Epic calls Fortnite OG.
Fortnite hits all-time player high
According to Epic itself, Fortnite OG has been the battle royale’s biggest season ever in terms of players. The developer tweeted that November 5 was, “the biggest day in Fortnite’s history,” with a whopping 44.7 million players jumping into the game for more than 102 million hours of gameplay. The game has been fairly successful on Twitch as well, with almost half a million viewers tuning in to watch streamers like Ninja play the game over the weekend.
Fortnite OG is exactly what it sounds like: to close out Chapter 4 with a bang, Epic brought back the battle royale game’s original map and weapons, with the core gameplay loop mostly intact. Some things have inevitably changed thanks to later additions like a no-build mode and mantling, but otherwise, it’s a return to Fortnite’s golden age of popularity.
Players have clamoured for a return to Fortnite’s original map and points of interest for years now, but the most Epic ever did was bring back a few old locations like Tilted Towers with visual overhauls in newer seasons. This is the first time Epic has fully turned back time to let players experience old locations and weapons almost exactly the way they used to be. Fortnite OG is planned to last for just one month with a slimmed-down battle pass before Chapter 5 kicks off in January/late December.
Every season of Fortnite OG will see the map experience seasonal changes from Chapter 1, starting with Season 5 and going all the way up to Season X. The nostalgia and constant updates are a very likely reason for the game’s immense resurgence in popularity, as players new and old jump in to see what all the fuss is about. The game even experienced login queues thanks to the sudden influx in players at launch, though these problems have now been abated.
Epic has also introduced Eleven from Stranger Things to Fortnite OG’s Item Shop, likely tying into Netflix’s Geeked Week event happening this week.
