Fortnite has had many great live evens - and with Chapter 2 Season 3 on the horizon, we share our top 5:
With a new season coming soon and many rumors about the upcoming Doomsday Event that will send off Chapter 2 Season 2, it’s a good time to reminisce. Few things have defined Fortnite like the spectacular live events where the developers really went all out to wow the fans. Here is our entirely subjective top 5.
- READ MORE: Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3 will be epic
5. The Comet
Way back as Season 4 was about to kick off, the comet was the first major live event in Fortnite. There have been many other live events since, but the fact that it was the first big map change - annihilating Dusty depot, leaving a crater renamed as Dusty Devot. Players were primed for the change by a comet appearing about halfway through Season 3 and various clues, such as emergency test patterns and Morse code messages that heralded the future spectacle. This is when it all started and back then, this was big news. More importantly, it set the scene for future Epic events, showing that the game would progress through live events rather than cutscenes.
4. The Snow King Unleashed
The Ice Storm of Season 8 was well-produced all around. The season, which started in December 2018, had an overall snow-theme and a part of the map was colored white, but as the season went on one area - Polar Peak - started to melt and revealed a castle, with an ice sphere holding the Snow King. Eventually, he broke free and a giant version of him caused a storm to blanket the island in ice and unleash hordes of zombies. Good setup, good visuals and cool payoff - check. The only possible minus is that the effect - both ice and zombies - didn’t last long.
3. The Marshmello Concert
Most of the big Fortnite events were pre-recorded rendering, but the in-game concert by EDM DJ Marshmello had the artist actually dress in a motion capture suit and perform in real-time. The event was a celebration of the Fortnite community and according to Epic was attended live by 10.7 million players, not counting all the viewers on YouTube and Twitch.
2. The End
The final Season 1 live event ended things with a bang. It featured elements of many previous events - missiles, meteors, the glowing orb from season 9’s mecha, and all the rifts you could want. It was a light show with so many missiles and explosions it might as well have been a Michael Bay movie. Finally, one last massive explosion created a black hole that sucked everything in - the map, the characters and even the interface.
Now, sure, all of it was because Epic needed some server downtime to deploy the new season with all the changes that this would entail. Yet the developers went the extra mile and delivered something truly spectacular.
Honorable Mention: Monster vs Mecha Battle
Fortnite seasonal end events were impressive more often than not, but even in that exalted company, the massive battle at the end of Season 9 deserves a special mention. The season culminated with a showdown between the Polar Peak monster, a.k.a. Cattus, and the giant mech from the Pressure Plant (nicknamed Doggus despite being vaguely catlike). The two went at it in the best traditions of the monster bash movies of old and it was a fight to make even WWE writers take notice. At the end of the day, the mech's sword had ran the monster’s head through - but it was a close fight.
1. The Travis Scott Concert
Yes, blame recency bias all you want - but in our absolutely subjective opinion, the Travis Scott concert was the impressive spectacle in Fortnite. The visuals and music were absolutely stunning and the overall presentation was top-notch. This concept broke all previous records for viewership and was spectacularly popular both among players and spectators - to the tune of over 27 million individual players according to the publisher. Epic Games and Travis hit it right out of the ballpark. GG.
Did we miss your favorite event? Would you rather we included another Epic masterpiece? Let us know and in the meantime, check our Fortnite coverage for more news and reviews!