Fortnite brought the storyline of its current Marvel season to a head tonight in a climactic battle with Doctor Doom that attracted a concurrent peak of 5.6 million players. Over the course of an hour, players worked together to tackle an enormous, rampaging version of the classic Marvel villain, until finally his armour cracked, his health bar was depleted, and he was sucked back into whatever corner of the Marvel multiverse he'd sprung from.
Fortnite's own stats show an overall total of 5.6 million players in-game just after 7pm UK time tonight, when this evening's live event began. This is the game's highest concurrent total since last December, when 11.
6 million players turned up for the Big Bang live event, which featured a performance by Eminem and teased the arrival of Lego Fortnite, racing and music modes . Tonight's big fight against Doctor Doom played out a little differently to other in-game events in the past, making for a memorable - if mechanically fairly straightforward - Fortnite live experience. At 7pm UK time tonight, players gathered to watch Fortnite's heroes block the arrival of Doctor Doom, only for the masked villain to turn up anyway.
As Doom forced his way onto the Island, the event switched to a rare in-game cutscene which showed fan-favourite characters getting picked off, and even mascot Jonesy put in peril - until this chapter's heroine Hope stepped up, cracking Doom's mask with Captain America's shield. The event then moved into its main phase - .