Epic Games’ Fortnite: Battle Royale has hit another impressive milestone in its short lifespan, passing 40 million total players. It also saw its highest concurrent player count last weekend with more than two million concurrent players.
Lead systems designer Eric Williamson spoke to Eurogamer about these figures and said, “To put it in context, some of the folk around the office are saying hey, we could be the biggest Battle Royale game in the western world, which is crazy. Some people are saying we could be the biggest and best-played game [full stop] in the western world.”
When you consider that Fortnite: Battle Royale has been around for less time than its immediate competitor PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, this is pretty big news. Of course, the former has the benefit of being free to play and available on PC, Xbox One and PS4 (PUBG is currently available on Xbox One and PC).
Epic Games has also garnered a strong reputation for fast and significant updates with the next set to add more locations to the current map. Along with a junkyard and city, the map will also have more clearly defined biomes to bring more personality to the environments. It’s thanks to level streaming courtesy of Unreal Engine that such changes could be made.
“It allows us to increase the performance but also opens us up to opportunities to improve the map in the future. Level streaming is technology which uncaps us to be able to increase the variety and quality of the localized area you’re in at any given time. It’s great technology that is useful in Battle Royale but also in all of our Unreal Engine licensees,” said Williamson.
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