Fortnite is at it again with a new escalation of its increasingly ridiculous crossover shenanigans. The game’s season finale event, Zero Hour, drew in an astounding 10.5 million live in-game participants, according to a post on the official Fortnite X account. Additionally, over 3 million people tuned in for livestreams of the event across various platforms.
Zero Hour concluded the latest chapter of Fortnite with an Avengers: Endgame-esque mass showdown against the Dark Presence, a super jacked Lovecraftian horror. But the real star of the show was the impressive lineup of crossover characters.
This year’s event featured an eclectic mix of icons, including Superman, Iron Man, Godzilla, Hatsune Miku, King Kong, the K-Pop Demon Hunters, Homer Simpson, various Star Wars characters, the Power Rangers in Megazord form, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even some random blokes from Squid Game—oh, and of course, some Fortnite originals too.
In other words, this mashup extravaganza is exactly what Fortnite was bound to become once it added Thanos all those years ago. It stands as a monument to the ultimate crossover, blending cross-generational appeal with mutually beneficial licensing deals. It’s incredible, it’s awful, it’s kind of funny, and yes, it’s definitely silly. Simply put, it’s exactly what we deserve.
Players have eagerly taken to social media to share their enthusiasm for the event. Epic Games’ co-founder Mark Rein also chimed in with insights about what it takes to pull off such an ambitious project. In a post on X, he built upon a thread praising the studio’s legal team and said:
“I negotiated the original licensing deals for Fortnite and, while we do have a great legal team, it was mostly the vision of our design and development team combined with bravery of our partners that made this all possible. Imagine the audacity of what we were asking them to do with their beloved and sacred intellectual property and the trust that required in us!”
Rein ended his message by saying, “in many ways we’re still just getting started,” a phrase you’re free to interpret as either a promise or a threat.
The phrase “sacred intellectual property” might send some of us to a very dark place mentally, but who can resist the appeal of a Hatsune Miku-Godzilla team-up? For all its cynicism, Fortnite’s ability to keep upping the ante all these years later is no small feat — and that’s something even skeptics can appreciate.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/fortnites-latest-live-event-drew-in-10-5-million-players-to-see-godzilla-hatsune-miku-homer-simpson-and-countless-other-characters-fight-a-giant-squid-man/