38% of Xbox Players Played Fortnite for its OG Update

In a recent tweet, it was announced that a massive portion of Xbox players logged in on November 3rd to play Fortnite. Over a third, in fact, with it being reported that 38% of all active accounts on Xbox played the game within a 24-hour period. That includes both last and current-gen consoles. This was noted by Mat Piscatella in a recent post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter):

This information comes from Circana, who has tracked player engagement in games since 2020. The report also notes that 33% of all PlayStation players also played the game on November 3rd. That means that over a third of gamers on both major consoles (excluding the Switch) decided to play Fortnite on this day. But why did so many decide to play now when the game has been out since 2017? Well, that’s because the the latest update- which publishes ‘Epic Games’ are calling the ‘OG’ season.

Image by Epic Games

Chapter 4, Season 5 returns the game to its heyday in 2018, as it marks the return of the original map that debuted all those years ago. This means that players have been able to play the battle royale in classic locations including Tilted Towers, Pleasant Park, and Haunted Hills. On top of this, a bunch of the original loot and guns are coming back for players to re-immerse themselves in the Fortnite of old. Considering that this is only one chapter as part of a season, it’s likely that this is limited, which may be one reason to explain the sudden influx of players.

Image by Epic Games

Considering that the 2017-2019 era of Fortnite was the height of its popularity, it’s no surprise to see how many players returned to the game. Considering that this is the largest amount of engagement that Fortnite has received since that period, Epic Games may want to rethink keeping this ‘OG’ mode temporary. One thing is for sure: if the developers wanted to recapture the initial success and popularity of the game, this update certainly managed that.