Fortnite continues to dominate the live streaming scene as one of the staples of the modern gaming arena, representing battle royales amongst the sea of MOBAs, FPS games, and RPGs. The game’s immense popularity has led to not only its own dedicated, thriving esports scene, but also to smaller leagues that push boundaries like the female-led Milk Cup and appearances in multi-game tournaments like the Esports World Cup.
Publisher Epic Games has pushed Fortnite beyond gaming, collaborating with big name IP and celebrities to expand its offerings to players – such as its crossover with LEGO and its partnership with Eminem. New season releases roughly every three months give Fortnite the chance to constantly reinvent itself and stay on-trend with the latest pop culture moments.
In this article, we’re looking at how Fortnite’s latest collaboration with Marvel has led to the success of its latest season launch, and the historical performance of season launches over time for the mega-hit Battle Royale title.
Fortnite’s Throwbacks and New Maps Generate the Most Hype on Live Streaming
Fortnite’s latest launch is Chapter 5 Season 4: Absolute Doom, a season bursting with references to the latest multiverse saga in the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. Absolute Doom generated 15.9M hours watched in the first week of its release with a peak viewership of 463K – numbers on par with mega-popular AAA game releases. The choice to feature Marvel IP was particularly clever, given the live-streaming hype that has been circling around for the upcoming Marvel Rivals hero shooter game.
Looking back over Fortnite’s many season launches, however, the viewership for this latest season has been relatively low. The latest season saw less than one-third of Fortnite’s all-time peak hours watched of 53.2M. In fairness, much of the game’s previous viewership was inflated by the COVID-era spike in live streaming.
However, it’s worth looking at what has worked in the past for boosting Fortnite seasonal launch viewership. The two stand out peaks at greater than 50M hours watched come from OG content. Chapter 4 Season 5, known better as “Fortnite OG”, racked up 50.6M hours watched. This return to the classic formula has been successful for other games as well, most notably World of Warcraft. Of course this is a one-off trick. Other well-performing season launches such as “Splashdown!” performed well thanks to new map releases and experimenting with the tone of the game in unexpected ways.
Fortnite Even Attracts Big Name IRL Streamers Like IShowSpeed
Fortnite has the ability to both create and attract some of the biggest names in live-streaming. Streamers like IShowSpeed and TimTheTatman still feature among the most watched Fortnite streamers in the past 12 months, with average minute viewerships (AMAs) of 44.7K and 27.4K, respectively. Fortnite announcements and updates remain an event for live streamers thanks to the game’s prestige reputation.
Given the popularity of some of these names, it’s surprising other streamers aren’t drowned out by their viewership. The top Fortnite content creator, however, is lesser-known French-speaking YouTube streamer Inoxtag with an AMA of 67.7K – well above IShowSpeed in second place. Additionally, Twitch streamer SypherPK became the fastest-growing live-streaming channel last week off the heels of Absolute Doom’s launch with an almost 1000x growth in viewership on his YouTube channel alone.
Fortnite’s IP Collabs Lead the Battle Royale Genre
Thanks to Fortnite’s clever collaborations and player-focused innovations, the game remains the top Battle Royale on live streaming. In 2024 so far, Fortnite has generated 490M hours watched – a full 159M hours more than second place Call of Duty: Warzone at 331M hours watched. It’s worth noting, however, that Fortnite features on both PC and mobile platforms. Other Battle Royales such as PUBG split their viewership across PC and mobile versions of the game (PUBG has 341M hours watched when combining both versions’ viewerships).
Fortnite makes full use of its live service model to constantly give players new content to engage with. Live streaming events like the Big Bang event at the end of 2023 also keep the community actively engaged and discussing the game’s new developments. With Epic Games now expanding with its Epic Games mobile store app on Android and iOS, Stream Hatchet is excited to see how the publisher spreads its influence through both Fortnite and other games in the months to come.
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