Fortnite collabs with many companies to create new game modes
On Dec. 2, Fortnite stated on X, previously twitter, that 2.5 million people watched the Chapter 5 Fortnite event. Many anticipated an exhilarating event as it was rumored that Eminem would have a virtual concert within Fortnite. However, many users saw it to be more of an advertisement for future games they are going to make.
Cameron Lovett ‘27 said, “The Fortnite event seemed to be more of a promo for future games.”
Jonah Browne ‘27 said, “Fortnite was trying to capitalize on this insanely large number of players who came back and showed us promo on what they have been working on.”
The event pulled in over 2.5 million players within the game, and 3 million people watched the event on Twitch. In addition, a staggering 147,000 people streamed the event. Many players were unable to watch the event due to errors with Fortnite servers, which may be why more people watched it on Twitch.
The event started with a rocket launched at Dusty Divot, a Fortnite location The rocket created portals to prevent the meteor that was about to land from destroying the map. The meteor was then transported to land through the portal onto “the zero point” which then created all the universes within Fortnite.
While the meteor was falling, users were prompted to click a certain point on their screens. When users clicked the point, the meteor was turned into other things, such as a toilet. The feature of clicking on time foreshadowed an addition of a music game mode later coming to the game. When the meteor broke the zero point, it created a black hole that sucked everything in. Then, it would throw items out, similar to another game, Fall Guys. The ending sequence users were thrown into space, finally revealing different multiverses of Fortnite.
The first universe was a collaboration between Fortnite and LEGO. Players were turned into Lego characters and got to see many fan-favorite skins (the different characters a user can play as in the game) in their LEGO variant, such as the Midas skin. The event also showed the skins building houses and scavenging for materials. Fortnite LEGO is set in the Fortnite universe so while a player can use most of their skins in a LEGO variant, the typical gamemode isn’t the normal battle royale mode. It is a survival gamemode where players scavenge for materials or food to fend off possible incoming monsters, similarly to Minecraft.
The second universe was a racing universe where players converted back into their regular skin and landed on racing cars. The cars were originally from Rocket League, another game from Fortnite creator, Epic Games Inc. Finally, the player was shown a race track as well as some features that are present in the new racing gamemode.
The third and last universe was the music universe. It started with the player’s team on a stage watching Slim Shady, a younger version of the rapper Eminem, singing his song, “Lose Yourself.” Then a Guitar Hero screen popped up prompting the player to play a music mini game involving timing the song. Part way through the mini game, a giant-sized Eminem crashed the concert and players were put onto a floating platform in a seemingly never-ending city with tall buildings. The song switched over to “Godzilla,” as a giant Eminem destroyed all the buildings within the city while performing his song, a reference to the song name. The concert ended with Eminem saying “and stop.” The player was then thrown back into the Fortnite multiverse where all of the universes of Fortnite were visible.
The Fortnite OG update made a debut before “The Big Bang” event. Releasing updates in this order proved to be efficient because Fortnite stated in a post on X that they had over 100 million active users throughout November.
