Fortnite hits more than 1.6 million viewers on Twitch during Galactus event

Epic Games put together one of its semi-regular in-game events for Fortnite today, producing the game’s second-highest peak viewership in the past year on Twitch. 

With more than 1.6 million concurrent viewers on Twitch when the festivities started a little after 3pm CT, today’s event was only bested by the game’s Doomsday event earlier this year. That event peaked at just over 2.3 million viewers, according to Twitch stat tracker SullyGnome.

While today’s event didn’t reach the same apex as Doomsday did on June 12, it was as strong or better than any other in-game Fortnite event in terms of Twitch viewership. The only other time Fortnite has eclipsed the 1.6 million concurrent viewer mark was during the Black Hole event that wowed and confused countless people last October. 

As some predicted, the Fortnite event today had players fight alongside one another to take down Galactus while he attempted to destroy the Fortnite universe. 

Though many notable streamers were streaming the game, a few stood out. At the time of the event’s start, Spanish-speaking content creator The Grefg led all streamers with around 245,000 viewers. Rubius was behind him with about 109,000 viewers. NICKMERCS was the third channel in terms of concurrent viewers with around 90,000 and TimTheTatman was close behind him.

Not everything went off without a hitch for content creators, though. Just as they all started to reach the climax of the fight against Galactus, Fortnite’s in-game audio started playing music to liven things up. 

For most of us at home, listening to “Demon Fire” by AC/DC while fighting alongside Thor and Wolverine might serve to enhance the experience. But for Twitch streamers who have been dealing with an onslaught of DMCA notices for having copyrighted music in the background of their stream, the music forced quick action. 

Instead of being able to enjoy the content Epic was showcasing, streamers like TimTheTatman and NICKMERCS had to mute their in-game audio, leading to a loss of immersion for viewers.

At the end of the event, gamers were left with a new timer letting them know that Fortnite’s servers will go down for maintenance at 11pm CT before season five officially starts tomorrow at 3am CT.