Fornite Has More Concurrent Players Than PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

They say competition is good for the soul, and because of that, video game companies copy each other so that they can try and mimic the success that the “originator” had. For Battle Royale games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was the title that truly broke through to players to show the power of this kind of gameplay style. Then, Epic Games released Fortnite, and copied the Battle Royale featured and added it to their game for free (much to the chagrin of PlayerUnknown himself). Now though, that gambit has paid off in an unexpected way.

For last Sunday, they had a massive surge of players come into Fornite. So much so that at its peak, 3.4 million players were online at the same time. This is more than PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has ever had in its history. Currently, they’re hovering around 3.14 million concurrent players. Now, there is a catch to it, much like PUBG and Bluehole before them, Epic Games is having some issues with the servers, as they weren’t designed to handle this amount of gamers at once. And in a blog post, they spotlight how the issues are forming

The obvious question you might asking is, “How could Fortnite have more concurrent players than PUBG?” Well, it’s a multi-layered thing. First off, just because you have more concurrent players, doesn’t mean you have more. PUBG was noted to have sold 26 million copies in its lifetime, Fortnite isn’t even close to that. What honestly happened was that 3.4 million people just decided to hop on and play at the same time. And timing is everything.

There is one distinct advantage the game has over PUBG though, and that’s reach. PUBG is only on PC and Xbox One (and that’s only via the Preview Program), while Fortnite is on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. So, that 3.4 million is a lot more spread out. Either way though, this is a big accomplishment for Epic Games, and if they can work out their server issues? Their player rate could grow even more.