Lego Fortnite is propelling Fortnite to a new level of popularity
Lego Fortnite, the new survival game spinoff of the Fortnite phenomenon that Epic Games launched on Dec. 7, is off to a flying start. According to Epic’s official player tracking, as recorded by Fortnite.gg, Lego Fortnitepeaked at an astonishing 2.45 million concurrent players on Saturday.
To put that number in context, it’s considerably higher than the all-time high for any game on Steam save PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which peaked at over 3 million simultaneous players in January 2018. It’s more than twice as many players as Steam’s current most popular game, Counter-Strike 2, had at the same point on Saturday.
Lego Fortnite is also the dominant game mode within Fortnite itself right now. It’s drawing roughly twice as many players as the main Battle Royale mode, and a comparable number to the Battle Royale, Zero Build, and Ranked modes combined.
Epic launched two other new games within Fortnite last week: arcade racer Rocket Racing, and rhythm game Fortnite Festival. These are not nearly as popular as Lego Fortnite, although their peak player counts are deep into six figures and would still be the envy of all but the top three or four games on Steam.
Together, the three new modes — which launched alongside Fortnite’s Chapter 5 and in the wake of its Big Bang event on Dec. 2 — represent a new era for Fortnite as it continues its evolution from a hugely popular battle royale shooter into a multifaceted, metaverse-style online gaming platform.
In an expert piece of stage management from Epic, this new era was ushered in by the monthlong Fortnite OG retro event, which allowed players to revisit the original game map and speed through several seasons from the game’s first Chapter. OG itself drew record numbers of
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