Fortnite has finally done it. Tonight’s Remix Finale event has at last beaten the game’s long-standing concurrent player record for a live concert, set back in 2020 when 12.3 million players tuned in for the first broadcast of its lockdown-era Travis Scott concert.
14.3 million people were in-game tonight for Fortnite’s Remix Finale event, according to the game’s public player stats, while millions more were watching online via Twitch and YouTube.
That’s higher than the 9.8 million watching in-game earlier this month when the Fortnite Remix mini-season kicked off with a livestreamed concert in Times Square featuring Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice. It’s more than double the 5.6 million players who logged in for October’s hour-long Doctor Doom boss battle. And perhaps most impressively, it’s also higher than last December’s much-hyped The Big Bang event, which was attended by 10 million players at the end of the game’s hugely popular OG season.
The only event to ever get higher within Fortnite was its Marvel season finale featuring Galactus, again back during the lockdown era of 2020, when 15.3 million people were in-game.
It’s been a while since Fortnite itself has commented on its own player stats. Tonight, Epic Games noted the Remix Finale’s huge attendance and it confirmed it was a record for any Fortnite concert event. Excluding concerts – which draw huge engagement but are brief affairs – Epic Games last noted a player milestone at the launch of last year’s OG season. Then, an astonishing 44 million players logged in over 24 hours, for Fortnite’s biggest day ever. (Could this record be broken next week, when Fortnite OG returns as a permanent mode?)
Fortnite’s Remix Finale kicked off on top of Snoop Dogg’s restyled Agency headquarters, site of the fan-favourite Chapter 2 live event The Device. Here, players saw the first of several nods back to previous Fortnite live events, as pylons rose from the waters surrounding the building – now decked out in loudspeakers – and the ‘Device’ itself appeared – now a giant microphone for a skyscraper-sized Snoop Dogg to pick up and rap with. Snoop’s section of the event continued with the rapper free-styling alongside a cel-shaded version of himself, around the Agency and then also in a space-set section where players skipped along a planet’s rings.
As Snoop blasted off atop the Battle Bus, Eminem dropped in for sequence initially inspired by his appearance in last year’s The Big Bang event. This was followed by a brilliant anime-inspired section where Snoop fought Fortnite’s fan-favourite bear robot (or Mecha Team Leader, to give its full name) from the game’s memorable 2019 mecha versus monster battle.
Next up came Ice Spice, initially via a more intimate sequence that saw players follow the rapper across city rooftops. A second track saw her turn kaiju-sized, before players were sent off to the concert’s final section featuring the late singer and self-proclaimed Fortnite fan Juice WRLD, who died in 2019.
How Fortnite handled Juice WRLD’s involvement here was interesting. Never before has the game highlighted a celebrity who has passed away, but this section felt an engaging and respectful tribute. Players saw a giant version of the singer surrounded by stars and Fortnite’s rift butterflies, rapping on the horizon. One section, featuring the newly-released track Empty Out Your Pockets, saw players transform into and move around the sequence as one of said butterflies (with a nod back to the game’s 2018 butterfly event, too). And there was more Juice WRLD to come – at the very end of the concert, there was the option to watch the debut of the official music video for the track. It’s a stylish animation set within Fortnite’s world, featuring many of its characters, and fitted tonight’s proceedings perfectly.
As the music came to a close, fans of Fortnite’s storyline were treated to something more – a look towards the game’s future, with some key characters again along for the ride.
The event’s end saw long-time Fortnite hero Jones and Chapter 5’s new main character Hope zooming off into a rift, quickly followed by the Battle Bus and what looks to be a shard of the Zero Point. Huh! As players followed, they were taken to… the game’s new Japan-inspired battle royale Island, which will launch properly tomorrow morning.
Yesterday’s trailer leak – presumably meant to go live after the event tonight – picks up immediately after, showing the Zero Point shard impacting the Island and sparking demons to come through a portal. Oops. But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
Back to tonight, and Epic Games has an encore showing of the Remix Finale event scheduled for 1am UK time (8pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific), should you wish to join in yourself.