Every Major 'Fortnite' Live Event, Ranked

From Travis Scott’s Astronomical Concert to The Final Showdown, here is every major Fortnite live event & concert ranked from least awesome to most awesome.

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'Fortnite'

Fortnite has been around since 2017. It’s now available in 3 modes; Fortnite: Save the World, Fortnite Battle Royale and Fortnite Creative.  The developers gave us something we’ve been craving for—an event based around the mysterious island itself and the “Doomsday Device,” which wrecked the Agency and turned the everpresent Storm into a massive Tsunami.

The last time we had a map altering live event was on October 13, 2019; a black hole formed in the center of the map, which sucked up the entire universe (menu interfaces and all) into the virtual ether. If you logged into the game, you were greeted by the sight of a black screen with a black hole in its center. This directly led into Chapter 2 Season 1, which gave us the current map we’re still playing on

These live events are highly attended, and the developers use them as a way of drawing in new players and giving experienced players some narrative mystery to chew on.

Here is every major Fortnite live event, ranked from least awesome to most awesome.

13. Live From Risky Reels

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Season: Chapter 2, Season 1

Date: December 14, 2019

A tie-in to the release of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, this live event was a glorified press conference, featuring some remarks by director J.J. Abrams and an exclusive clip of the upcoming movie.

It did, however, open with a very cool space battle over the map, featuring the Millenium Falcon and a massive Star Destroyer. And at the very end, we got to hear Emperor Palpatine's "mysterious broadcast" from Episode IX's opening title crawl, which proclaimed the "day of the Sith" and the beginning of the Final Order.

12. The Unvaulting Event

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Season: Chapter 1, Season 8

Date: May 4, 2019

The vault in Loot Lake opened. And Epic Games, in a unique instance of democratic rule, allowed players to vote on which banned weapon they wanted unvaulted and placed back into play. The community overwhelmingly chose the overpowered Drum Gun. Afterward, the players were transported back to the island, where a live volcano eruption was sending smoke and fireballs into the sky.

11. The Cube Event

Fortnite cube event

10. The Meteor Event

Fortnite Meteor event

9. The Blast-Off Event

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Season: Chapter 1, Season 4

Date: June 13, 2018

This event was, in many ways, similar to the one we just went through; a rocket blasted off into space. This set off a series of dimensional rifts; the rocket spent a minute warping in and out of these rifts, sort of like the Scooby-Doo chase scenes where the gang entered one door and exited another on the opposite side. The event left us with a massive crack in the sky, which remained there for two months until the Cube event. Think of this as a dry run for the black hole event, which went a lot better (or a lot worse, depending on who you look at it).

8. The Butterfly Event

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Season: Chapter 1, Season 6

The island in the middle of Loot Lake began traveling around the map, buoyed by Kevin the Cube, which clung and stuck to the bottom of the island. After visiting all the previous corrupted locations, the cube settled back over Loot Lake and began leaking—thus, Loot Lake was temporarily renamed Leaky Lake. It turned out that the cube was a container of some sort. And once it was empty, the cube began spinning, transporting players to the In-Between light universe. There, players could see an ethereal butterfly flying around; it landed on the player's finger, which then transported players back to the island which was now rid of the monsters that had plagued it throughout the Halloween season.

If it sounds a little confusing, it was. This was the first time that a Fortnite live event had this level of production, budget, and planning, and it expanded Fortnite's in-game universe beyond the island. Word is that 8.3 million players watched the Butterfly Event; there was now a greater story to uncover and other dimensions and areas that influenced this one.

7. The Ice Storm Event

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Season: Chapter 1, Season 7

Date: January 19, 2019

The Ice Storm Event was foreshadowed by the in-game televisions, which featured a countdown clock and a storm warning. We knew that there was going to be a massive snowstorm; what we didn't know was how cool they were going to make it.

The Ice King used his magic to crack the ice sphere above Polar Peak, and conjured a massive likeness of himself. It then swept its arms about, covering everything under a foot of ice and snow.

6. The Device

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Season: Chapter 2, Season 2

Date: June 15, 2020

The Agency exploded. The Doomsday Device rose. And after a great deal of sparks, electricity and pulsing energy waves, it changed the Storm--the massive barrier that defines the outer rim of match play--into a massive, swimmable wall of water.

These scenes of chaos were interspersed with a 1st person view of a sterile office setting. There were 'Top Secret' folders on the table. There was the live event, playing on a nearby desktop. It feels like for a brief moment, like we escaped the fantasy world of Fortnite for something more mundane and real. We'll learn more details as Chapter 2 continues.

5. Astronomical

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Season: Chapter 2, Season 2

Date: April 23-25, 2020

A concert featuring a massive Travis Scott via hologram, Astronomical doubled as a tribute to all of Fortnite's past events; it alluded to everything from the initial meteor strike to the black hole event that concluded Chapter 1.

The developers, aware of how popular the event would be, staggered multiple concerts across three days, to ensure its accessibility to as many people as possible. And it's a good thing too; 12 million people showed up on the first date.

4. The End Event

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Season: Season 10

Date: October 13, 2019

The final Season 1 live event brought things full circle, back to the time rifts from Season 4. But this time, everything converged: the missiles, the meteor, and the glowing orb the prior season's Mecha had left behind. The explosion ripped a black hole in space-time, and everything was sucked in: map, menus, characters, and interfaces;. We were left with a glowing black hole.

At their core, all these live events serve a practical reason, to narratively explain why changes in the game and server downtimes are taken place. But most games would not put this much effort into creating an immersive world, where the mundane matters of game upkeep, coding, and rebooting are given such spectacular rationalizations.

3. The Marshmello Concert

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Season: Season 8

Date: February 2, 2019

The in-game concert by EDM DJ Marshmello functioned as a celebration of the Fortnite community; 10.7 million players, not including the casual observers on Twitch and YouTube, attended the concert live.

This was no pre-recorded rendering; Marshmello actually got dressed up in a mo-cap suit and performed both his music and his voice in real-time. It was about as interactive as you can physically get with him without going to one of his concerts.

2. The Final Showdown Event

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Season: Season 9

Date: July 20, 2019

A massive Mecha versus Monster main event closed out Season 9—a callback to the classic King Kong vs. Godzilla, kaiju movies from the '60s. They moved all over the map in a slow, plodding manner, like they had real weight and power to them.

The ripped at each other's limbs, hurled rockets at each other, bit each other, and threw each other, destroying parts of the map in the process. But eventually, the Mecha came out on top, flossed with its one good arm, and flew off into the night.

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