Were you around for the Fortnite server debacle last weekend? Players experienced a tremendous wait times and full online failure for the game, without a ton explanation from developer Epic Games on what the underlying issue is. However, following today’s announcement about the issue, it is entirely understandable — Fortnite reached 3.4 million concurrent users, setting a new milestone for the growing battle royale genre.
News comes directly from Epic Games in a half-blog post, half-job listing earlier today. The actual post itself swings widely technical in nature, but the bullet points speak to Epic Games claim that Fortnite is now the “biggest PC/console game in the world!”
The claim is obviously an incredible one, and it directly rivals the initiator in the battle royale movement, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. While people have become used to boasting of PUBG‘s incredible growth, it would appear that Fortnite has now overtaken them. According to data aggregate Steamcharts, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds all-time peak for concurrent players is 3,236,027 players — under the 3.4 million point for Epic’s battle royale version.
Of course, it isn’t possible to say with certainty that this number is record-breaking as PUBG’s peak came post-Xbox One launch, so the current figure doesn’t include Xbox One concurrent players. If, for example, at least 170,000 Xbox One players were playing at that time, Fortnite‘s seeming record may still be under PUBG‘s peak.
The writing has been on the wall that Fortnite is a growing success — so much so that Epic Games is abandoning other major projects and offering refunds to all players. This, of course, is a boon to other studios looking to sweep up the now-available market.
Even if this may not be the worldwide record that Epic Games is positioning it to be, it is undoubtedly still a huge achievement. Fortnite is available as a free-to-play game for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.