Fortnite smashed its all-time player records on Saturday (November 4) following the launch of the nostalgic Fortnite OG season, which has brought the classic Chapter One map back to the battle royale.
In a tweet posted by the official Fortnite account yesterday (November 5), the team thanked players new and old for their support, noting that it’s “blown away” by the response. It wrote: “Way to start things off with a big bang. We're blown away by the response to Fortnite OG. Yesterday was the biggest day in Fortnite’s history with over 44.7 MILLION players jumping in and 102 MILLION hours of play. To all Fortnite players, OG and new, THANK YOU!”
Way to start things off with a big bang 💥We're blown away by the response to #FortniteOG. Yesterday was the biggest day in Fortnite’s history with over 44.7 MILLION players jumping in and 102 MILLION hours of play.To all Fortnite players, OG and new, THANK YOU!November 5, 2023
It's also thought that the launch of Fortnite OG on Friday (3 November) contributed to media and telecommunications company Virgin Media O2 having its busiest ever day for broadband data downloaded on its network, at almost 154,000 Terabytes (TB) of data downloaded over the course of the day. The previous record was approximately 140,000TB on Sunday, April 16.
For those unfamiliar, the latest season of Fortnite has made the in-game map return to how it was in Chapter One, Season Five in 2018. Fan-favorite points of interest (POIs) like Tilted Towers and Risky Reels are back, as well as the weapons and items that were in the game at the time, like Boogie Bombs and Shopping Carts.
However, over the coming weeks, things will change around even more, with different things being brought into the loot pool to reflect later seasons in Fortnite Chapter One, like the X-4 Stormwing plane, Jetpack, The Baller, and Junk Rift. Fans can expect the next update on November 9 to add a bunch of Season Six weapons.
This blast from the past was hinted at in the last Fortnite season, with a time machine added into the game which displayed the date “June 12, 2018” - the day that Chapter One Season Five originally began. Decorations from the classic season also began to appear around the map, suggesting that something was brewing.
It’s not clear if any of these classic map elements will be kept in the next season, but for now, as the record shows, players are clearly making the most out of this classic map.
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