by Fortnite brought the current Marvel season’s storyline to a head tonight in a climactic battle with Doctor Doom that drew a concurrent high of 5.6 million players.
Over the course of an hour, players worked together to take on a massive, rampaging version of the classic Marvel villain, until eventually his armor cracked, his health bar depleted, and he was sucked back into whatever corner of the Marvel multiverse he was in. had also ended up. emerged from.
Fortnite’s own stats show a total of 5.6 million players in the game just after 7pm UK time tonight when tonight’s live event started. This is the game’s highest concurrent total since last December, when 11.6 million players showed up for the Big Bang live event, which featured an Eminem performance and the arrival of Lego Fortnite, racing and music modes.
Tonight’s big battle against Doctor Doom played out a little differently than other in-game events in the past, making for a memorable – albeit mechanically fairly simple – Fortnite live experience.
At 7pm UK time tonight, players gathered to watch Fortnite’s heroes block the arrival of Doctor Doom, but the masked villain showed up anyway. As Doom invaded the island, the event switched to a rare in-game cutscene that singled out favorite characters and even put mascot Jonesy in danger – until this chapter’s heroine, Hope, stepped up and cracked Captain Doom’s mask along with it. America’s shield.
The event then moved into the main phase: a lengthy boss battle against a towering Doctor Doom with a sizable health bar that didn’t look like it would deplete anytime soon. Instead, players found that defeating Doom would take multiple matches, as the game’s global community worked together to reduce his health instead of fighting each other.
Whether it was due to some live adjustments from Epic Games or a sudden increase in damage dealt, Doom’s health bar seemed to decrease more quickly as the hour-long battle continued. After three or four matches – Doom is still rampaging around and the health bar is slowly dropping – damage was visible on the armor he forged from this chapter’s macguffin – Pandora’s Box – and Hope’s voice could be heard again, indicating that the fight was over.
With Doom’s health finally depleted, the heroes’ plan succeeded: Doctor Doom was driven from existence, dropping his cracked mask as he left the island – now a permanent reminder of the battle. (I had to laugh when I saw every player in my game immediately get run over when the fight was over and start hitting his mask with his picks.)
As Fortnite events go, this was one of the most memorable for a while. Of course, this didn’t have the same extensive gameplay as the Galactus event, or the shocking storytelling as The Device. But after a slow return to live goings-on this year, the short delivered a great, triumphant moment for Hope, whose storyline has been the focus of this season, while the drawn-out nature of the fight made it feel like it was a battle. against something really powerful. That it lasted just under an hour ultimately felt good – long enough that players could share news about the event with friends and let others join in, and not too long that you’d wander off and make other players waste Doom’s health for you.
Fortnite has already been teasing what’s next for the game – the annual Halloween celebration, Fortnitemares – and beyond, well… With Doom already defeated, a month before this season’s end date of November 2, players had to think about what exactly will happen next. Fortnite has been switching up its in-game maps annually for the past three years, and it’s expected that we’re on the cusp of another such change. But after the massive success of last year’s OG season, this would certainly be a good time for Epic Games to throw another one in as well.
