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 – a lengthy boss battle against a towering Doctor Doom with a sizable health bar that didn’t look like it was going to be depleted anytime soon. Instead, players found that beating Doom would take multiple matches, as the game’s global community worked together to whittle down his health instead of fighting one another.
Whether through some live tweaks by Epic Games or a sudden updraft in damage done, Doom’s health bar seemed to decrease quicker as the hour-long fight continued. After three or four matches – Doom still rampaging around throughout, health bar slowly lowering – damage was visible on the armour he had forged from this chapter’s macguffin – Pandora’s Box – and Hope’s voice could be heard once again, signalling the fight was at a close.
As Doom’s health was finally depleted, the heroes’ plan succeeded: Doctor Doom was rifted out of 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 run over when the battle was done and begin hitting his mask with their pickaxes.)
As Fortnite events go, this was one of the most memorable for some time. Sure, this did not have the same elaborate gameplay as the Galactus event, or the storytelling shocks as The Device. But after a slow return to live goings-on this year, the brief cutscene brought a great, triumphant moment for Hope, whose storyline has been centre stage this season, while the elongated nature of the fight brought a real sense that this was a battle against something truly powerful. That it lasted just under an hour ultimately felt about right – long enough that players could share news of the event with friends and get others to join in, and not too long that you’d wander off and let other players chip away at Doom’s health for you.
Fortnite is already teasing what’s next for the game – its annual Halloween celebration, Fortnitemares – and beyond that, well… With Doom defeated already, a month in advance of this season’s end date on 2nd November, players have been left to ponder what exactly will happen next. Fortnite has switched its in-game maps on an annual basis each of the last three years, and the expectation is we’re on the cusp of another such change. But after the huge success of last year’s OG Season, now would certainly be a good time for Epic Games to squeeze in another one of those, too.