For years, Fortnite Battle Royale was the most played video game in the world. However, due to many changes to the playing map, mechanics and weapon pool, the player count has slowly dwindled since the game’s peak in 2018. The game that an entire generation of kids grew up playing was seemingly unrecognizable and no longer held the same influence as it did in the past.
Epic Games, the company that created Fortnite, sensed the limited support in comparison to its past, and realized they had to do something about it. Their idea was to bring back the original map of the game which tens of millions of people had once loved. On Nov. 3, Epic Games officially brought back the original map.
On the first day of “Fortnite OG,” over 44 million people worldwide played a game of Fortnite and, at its peak, 6.2 million were active on the game concurrently. This broke the record for most people playing a video game at one time. In comparison, the most played game based on peak number of concurrent players in 2022 was 1.3 million.
Much of the Paideia student body has begun playing the game again. “The old map brings back nostalgia and the memories of a stressless childhood,” says Miles Furman ’24.
This feeling of being taken back to a time before the everyday stress and pressure that high school students face is very common among former enthusiasts who have started playing again. “The updates are revolutionary,” Charlotte Guajardo ’24 says.
Not all students think that Fortnite has changed for the better. In fact, co-captain of the Paideia Esports team Cole Williams ’24 thinks that “Fortnite isn’t that great of a game.” In addition, Williams confirms that Fortnite will never be a part of the Paideia esports program: “[Our coaches and I] object to making a Fortnite team.” So while the esports student-athletes at the school might object to making a Fortnite team, the OG version has brought a spark to the name that hasn’t existed for many years.
