There’s no question about it, Fortnite is an online juggernaut. It’s made billions in revenue, won countless accolades at the Gamers’ Choice Awards ever since it released, and is mid-process in collaborating with every trend, IP, and celebrity it can. The once-Battle Royal survivor shooter turned multimedia gaming experience has even added its own creation suite, competing with the likes of Roblox and Minecraft in player-led community innovation.
Launching back in 2017 with the intention to introduce Save the World as its main mechanic, before pivoting to become the Battle Royal giant in the boom period of Battle Royales, Fortnite has expanded time and time again on its core gameplay to provide something for everyone.
So, instead, the question becomes; why is Fortnite so popular? Who is playing, and how many? Has its victory lap ended over the online multiplayer scene, or has it barely begun?
The current Fortnite player count
With 2024 having come and gone, it has seen another major year for Fortnite. DemandSage has aggregated numerous key points of data across the internet on the famous Battle Royale, and the game has witnessed continued growth in total players registered. Here is a table to summarise their data into the key points:
| Month | Avg. Players | Gain | % Gain | Peak Players |
| December 2024 | 2,166,185 | -1,765 | +7.26% | 4,789,430 |
| November 2024 | 2,019,581 | +641,222 | +46.52% | 14,343,880 |
| October 2024 | 1,378,359 | +8,189 | -0.59% | 5,641,544 |
| September 2024 | 1,386,548 | +51,048 | +3.82% | 2,681,441 |
| August 2024 | 1,335,500 | -175,660 | +15.15% | 3,235,781 |
| July 2024 | 1,159,840 | -99,839 | -7.93% | 2,882,945 |
| June 2024 | 1,259,679 | +79,625 | +6.75% | 2,128,213 |
| May 2024 | 1,180,054 | -262,631 | -18.2% | 2,420,862 |
| April 2024 | 1,442,685 | -422,909 | -22.67% | 2,861,907 |
| March 2024 | 1,865,594 | -143,672 | -7.15% | 5,152,863 |
| February 2024 | 2,009,266 | -376,640 | -15.79 | 4,894,554 |
| January 2024 | 2,385,906 | – | – | 4,894,554 |
Over 650 million Fortnite accounts have been created since Fortnite launched in 2017, and it has maintained an average of approximately 1.6 million concurrent players since the beginning of 2023. This peaked last year in November 2024 with over 14 million players online simultaneously for the Remix: The Finale event on the 30th of November. Halloween-through-Christmas season might be the best time to play online, as year-on-year that is when the Fortnite player count is at its largest, with highs of 10 million in December 2023 online all at once, and a concurrent daytime peak of over 3 million on average. These numbers tend to fall off a bit late-winter and early-spring until around May, with turnovers in the new seasons and the summer events pulling new players back in.
Fortnite seems to be as popular as ever, and ostensibly for one simple reason: people find it fun. The largest number of concurrent players for the game coincided with the release of Fortnite OG, and the nostalgia for the original 2018 experience led to a Fortnite player count of over 6 million concurrent players in November 2023. With the recent dreamscape performances by the likes of Eminem and the late great Juice WRLD, plus the ever-present collaborations with Marvel and its new Marvel Rivals release, and even new samurai-inspired Star Wars skins and characters, Fortnite’s new Chapter 6 seems as ambitious as ever heading into 2025.
As for its competitors, Fortnite still sits at the roundtable of gaming giants, with only multi-genre game creation engines such as Minecraft and Roblox, or massively multiplayer recent releases like whichever Call of Duty has released that year rubbing shoulders with Fortnite in concurrent and peak players. The others do not seem to come close. The game that inspired Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, PUBG, still has a impressive 800,000 in peak players on SteamCharts, but that doesn’t come close to Fortnite’s player count.
Even the aforementioned Marvel Rivals might be leaning on it through the collaboration, as although it is a newer release, it is pulling in a concurrent peak of approximately 450,000 players. It’s clear, then, that Fortnite still resides on the island of relevancy, but what of its players? Who is Fortnite popular with, specifically?
Who is currently playing Fortnite?
With 110 million monthly active users, many of which picking up the game in the holiday seasons, it is no surprise that the average age of the player-base is between 18 and 24 years. According to DemandSage, 62.7% of Fortnite players are in this range, with an eye-watering 89.7% identifying as male. Maybe, school is out and they’re all playing Fortnite? It isn’t a far out suggestion, the data certainly seems to look this way.
Fortnite also registered as the second-most popular game with preteens, with over half of Fortnite’s total player count being between the ages of 10 and 25, and almost half of players born after 2010 claiming Fortnite as one of their all-time favourite games. The United States, perhaps unsurprisingly, has the lion’s share of players with over 20% of Fortnite players residing in the good ol’ US of A. This could be to the influence of Hollywood and the American music industry hosting enormous live events in the game.
Perhaps obviously, however, it isn’t just the USA who are counted amongst Fortnite’s massive player count. The forecasted global gaming population is projected to increase to over 2.3 billion this year, meaning almost 30% of gamers worldwide have their own Fortnite account. Of the gamers worldwide who identify as Battle Royale enjoyers, 68% of them play Fortnite and 35% do so exclusively over any other Battle Royale game.
Who is making money on Fortnite?
Gamers also love to visit Fortnite’s Item Shop. Fortnite players have reportedly spent over $40 billion on the game, and spending over $100 on average per year (as of 2020). With Fortnite making more profit for Epic Games than ever before, it may not be surprising to see this average spend increase with the game’s revenue year-on-year. Skins appear to be the players’ choice; around 59% of total money spent purchasing outfits and characters. In fact, Fortnite players don’t seem to be shy at all on spending money: 77% of players saying that they splash the cash on the shooter, making up around 500 million players in total if that is true.
Fortnite’s eSports scene has exploded ever since it released. Fortnite streams are hot commodities on streaming sites such as Twitch, with records being broken year-in year-out by some of the biggest names in streaming. The Fortnite official Twitch page ranks Ninja (aka Tyler Blevins), arguably the poster-boy for the game’s streaming scene, as the number one Twitch channel as of January 2025. Many of the top ten streamers on Twitch have broken into those lofty ranks by playing the world’s premier Battle Royale, but even Fortnite’s official Twitch page is seen as high as 35th in the world, meaning gamers seemingly cant get enough of even watching the action.
The Fortnite World Cup is a spectacle in and of itself. More than 1 million users tuned in to witness the 2019 edition of the World Cup at Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the prize-pool was a staggering $30 million for the plucky participants. Five years on from that and tournaments still place millions as a prize pool to entice teams to try their luck at a victory royale.
Victories in tournaments do not even have to be a requirement in order to make it big. Fortnite makes streamers money, and lots of it. 6 of the top 10 highest paid Twitch streamers use Fortnite as one of their major content tools, with Ninja again topping the charts in terms of earnings. The list extends far beyond this, with hundreds of other streamers making profit off of Fortnite’s eager player count wanting to watch the action.
What is next for Fortnite?
It is as good a time as ever to join the premier Battle Royale shooter-looter, as it offers players so much more than its flagship game mode. Here is a summary of the major draws to Fortnite, and what players are thinking:
Battle Royale
The mode the game is most famous for, and the numbers don’t lie. Millions of players fight to climb the ranked leaderboards in this survival-shooter experience, or casually drop into the sprawling battlescape with their friends and try for the illustrious victory royale.
The premise has remained as simple as it was when it first launched, build and shoot your way to victory against other players online in a frenetic fight to become the last one standing. You can loot locations in-game, or fallen items from defeated players, to build up your arsenal and crafting pool. Of course, with every Chapter and even every Season of the game there are new additions, so be sure to be on the lookout for the next strategy to help you succeed.
Zero Build
The most popular rendition of the Battle Royale mode might as well be classed as a separate experience entirely. Gone are the tools to make huge structures and defenses; you are armed with nothing but your weapons and your wits. There is a reason gamers see this mode as one of the most popular in the game’s library, and ever since Epic decided to endorse their own version its player count has shot up to significant heights.
Fortnite OG
For those who have played Fortnite since the beginning, or who witnesses its rise as a Battle Royale titan in the late 2010s, Fortnite OG is a love letter to the early days of Chapter 1. This is arguably Fortnite in its purest form, with no hyper-modern gameplay, loot or locations. All you see is pure Fortnite nostalgia, with the classic weapons and locales as you drop from the bus one more time. The release of OG sent shockwaves through the player-base and led to a surge in popularity that has followed the game mode ever since. Maybe it’s time to check out what the fuss is all about, just like in the good old days.
Save the World
If facing off against other players isn’t your thing, and you prefer a more co-operative experience then it is best to check out Save the World. This was what Fortnite was always intended to be, and would have been if not for Fortnite seeing what PUBG was attempting to accomplish with their Battle Royale shooter experience and quickly creating their own.
Save the World focuses on the levelling up of your heroes through crafting massive structures, looting powerful weapons and fighting off enemies like with Battle Royale, only this time the enemies are cartoonishly monstrous AI enemies and the other players in the game are at your side.
Lego Fortnite
Lego Fortnite isn’t just one game mode, though every player has their favourite. Rather it is a tailored set of experiences seen through the multi-billion-dollar toy company’s colourful brick-shaped lens. The classic Fortnite characters have been reimagined as Lego minifigures, with modes such as the Sims-styled Brick Life and the adventure setting of Lego Fortnite Odyssey providing a family-friendly experience for all generations of gamer.
Fortnite Festival
The Festival Main Stage has become a cultural boiling pot for the biggest pop culture and music superstars to capture the attentions of the millions of Fortnite fans. There is a wide selection of musical artists who perform dreamscape gigs to a live player-audience, allowing for a different kind of interactivity than either Fortnite’s main game modes or even attending a real-world festival. Epic Games aren’t shy about announcing the next big performance, so keep updated where you can.
Rocket Racing
Psyonix famous 2015 Soccar experience, Rocket League, collaborated with Fortnite in a major crossover in 2023 and hasn’t looked back since. Gearing up in the iconic Rocket League Soccar cars, you instead take on a high-octane race against the clock or against your friends. The tracks are mind-bending, sending racers in every direction imaginable as they scramble to reach the finish line. If the fast paced action of Battle Royale isn’t enough for you, then maybe Rocket Racing will give you your adrenaline fix.
Fortnite Ballistic
Similar to the widely popular Tom Clancy tactical multiplayer shooters, Fortnite has created its own 5v5 round-based First-Person competition. You and four of your friends can hop into a lobby and take on another team in a best-of-seven series, upgrading your loadout every round in order to get the advantage over your rivals. Ballistic is the newest addition to the Fortnite universe at the time of writing, and is an entirely different sensation than the typically wild Third-Person action the core game modes are known for.
Other Game Modes Of Fortnite
Fortnite has taken a page from another titan of the multiplayer scene in Roblox, to given the Fortnite community the freedom to design games of their own. Epic have provided modified games modes that are already in existence, such as the Reload series of servers that reinvent the Battle Royal it is famous for, the hangout space known as Party Royale that is focused on chilled-out gameplay with friends and other players, and the community-led Squid Game-style parody known as Octo Game that is at the forefront of this Fortnite Creative initiative launched way back in 2018.
It is these player-made game modes that have captured the imagination of Fortnite players in the modern day, much like how Roblox allows its player-base to make their own games inside the game. You can find anything your heart desires, it seems, with game modes such as Zone Wars, restriction-free 1v1 modes, prison simulators, and even murder mysteries to sink your teeth into. And as always if there is a game mode you would love to see that isn’t there, and you want to flex your creative muscles, you can make your own!
What is next for Fortnite?
Rocket Racing, Festival, Ballistic, and LEGO Fortnite have all exploded in popularity over the last couple of years, and who knows what Epic is going to release next. It seems more focus is on the wants and needs of the player than ever before, and there is a certain freedom in Fortnite that isn’t easily found elsewhere. The developers are always adding something new, giving players something to come back to, like with new gameplay mechanics such as parkour or the release of new skins or emotes in the store. With every new Chapter comes something brand new, so don’t let Fortnite fall off your radar any time soon.
