We’ve said it before and we’ll likely say it again, but Fortnite, Epic’s uber-popular, free-to-play online battle royale — which has extended into an entire online gaming platform at this point thanks to alternative game modes like Creative (where players can create pretty much any variation or minigame involving Fortnite characters they can think of), Fortnite Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Lego, the latter of which just helped surpass its all time-peak player count, isn’t showing any signs of fading in popularity seven years into its lifespan.
The day Fortnite Lego was introduced saw 2.4 million players concurrently playing the new building-survival based mode (which draws influence from Minecraft and Valheim), dwarfing the Battle Royale, which had a paltry (by comparison) 865,817. If you think that’s impressive, Fortnite achieved yet another milestone last month on consoles. Just take a look at some of the marquee names that Fortnite beat out in total playtime on consoles in December… combined.
Total Fortnite playtime was greater than Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Warzone and Call of Duty HQ), EA Sports FC, GTA 5/Online and Roblox combined on consoles last month, with users spending over 1.6 billion hours playing Fortnite in the month of December (according to research from Ampere Analysis).
Epic Games
Fortnite playtime was up 146% compared to October and a further 9% in December than November (the latter of which saw a record player resurgence thanks to Fortnite OG mode), thanks to the release of its three new game modes (the aforementioned Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival, a Rock Band-esque game mode developed by Harmonix.
Ampere Analysis predicts that the user engagement in Fortnite will drop off in the coming months when the novelty of Fortnite Lego and the other new game modes wears off, although that doesn’t detract from the impressive feats of a game nearly seven years into its lifespan.
“As the novelty of Lego Fortnite wears off, Ampere expects engagement to normalise in the coming months”, said Louise Wooldridge, Ampere Analysis’ research manager for games.
“Although the confirmed 2024 return of Fortnite OG – the November 2023 content update which triggered the game’s highest all-time player count – could see its absolute dominance persist.”
What do you think of the fact that Fortnite playtime was greater than Call of Duty, EA Sports FC, GTA 5 and Roblox combined on consoles last month? Let us know in the comments.
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