Fortnite’s The End brings down Twitch before new season reveal

Fortnite’s event “The End,” which turned the game and its features into a black hole, attracted so many viewers to Twitch that the platform experienced sudden and dramatic downtime.

The last event of the Fortnite season X “The End” let players participate in what signalizes the end of Fortnite’s current iteration, taking the game down. Epic Games’ Fortnite server status is showing all of the Fortnite assets, from website to game service, as detecting an anomaly.

Developers are preparing the game for an episode two relaunch that will, according to leaks, include a new map and other features like new vehicles and the option to swim through deep waters.

The End viewership shuts down Twitch

But the event didn’t only crush down Fortnite, it also caused problems to Twitch. According to reporter Rod “Slasher” Breslau, The End was watched by over six million people across various streaming platforms, with Twitch having around 1.5 million of those viewers, making it one of the most-watched gaming events in history.

The platform struggled to handle such high viewership numbers and was briefly shut down. When it came back up, the page was loading very slowly, streams were having audio issues, and some users couldn’t even see any of the live streams listed on the platform.

Fortnite still has high viewership on Twitch for black hole

The hype has calmed down quite a bit, but is still going as fans wait for news on Fortnite. Almost a day after The End was launched, viewers are still staring at a screen that shows nothing but a black hole in anticipation of the start of the new episode.

The League of Legends 2019 World Championship experienced just under 600,000 views during the FunPlus Phoenix vs. Splyce match on October 14, during which time Fornite’s static, black screen was being watched by almost 400,000 viewers.

It’s still not known when Fortnite’s new chapter will launch, but streamers and players alike seem determined to be ready for whenever that moment arrives. It seems likely that this will spike even higher numbers than did the ending event.