Today Epic Games launched the third game of the trio announced during Fortnite‘s Big Bang Live a week ago, Fortnite Festival.
The game, which was developed by Harmonix of Rock Band and Guitar Hero fame following the acquisition by Epic, is proving quite popular already, with solid debut numbers.
Players can enjoy two mode, the main stage, which features the classic Rock Band-style rhythm gameplay, and the Jam Stage. At the moment of this writing, these are hosting just north of 600,000 and 50,000 players respectively.
The game has launched with a rather rich setlist with plenty of famous artists like Lady Gaga, The Cranberries, and Imagine Dragons, on top of The Weeknd as the featured music icon with several songs.
Players can either play songs they have acquired, or they can access free ones from the rotating playlist on the Main Stage. The gameplay is certainly recognizable if you have played Harmonix’s past games.
You can check out the launch trailer below.
This places the cherry on top of a very successful launch of the three games-within-a-games.
While neither Fortnite Festival nor Psyonix’s Rocket Racing managed to replicate the massive initial success of LEGO Fortnite (which just passed a record 2.4 million concurrent players as I’m writing this) the three new games are counting about 3.5 million concurrent players at peak times.
That’s definitely a lot of players and a successful step for Epic Games in its effort to turn Fortnite from a Battle Royale sensation to an aspiring Metaverse. Of course, we’ll have to see how the numbers progress over the next few months and beyond, but so far, so good.
In the meantime, you can also take a look at The Weeknd in action below.
Speaking of records, the OG season managed to draw over 100 million players into Fortnite in November. On its launch day, it pulled a mind-boggling 44.7 million users.
We already know that due to its overwhelming success, Epic is planning to bring it back sometime in 2024.
