Fortnite has been down for hours as millions of players stare at a black hole

theverge.com

25 points·theslurmmustflo··3 comments

I've never played this game so this is an outsider's understanding. It looks like there was an in-game event involving an asteroid destroying the game world. It created a black hole which leaked into the game's web presence, including social media.

This was precluded by the initiation of a new storyline. Apparently, it all may be leading to a massive update of the game. Players are eating it up. Amazing PR stunt.

Narrative framing of planned downtime! Genius. I wonder if it's been done before? I guess it only works with something as hyped as Fortnite

Cataclysmic events in online games are always a great watch.

One of the most memorable ones in recent history for me was in Final Fantasy XIV. The original release of the game met with negative reviews, so Square Enix decided to re-release it with fixes and a new story arc. I never played it, but the video of the last few seconds on that server before transitioning to the update is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEg8kXmifo

I don't play Fortnite, but the seasonal release cycle seems to work nicely for games like this. It provides new content regularly, and means that you get to see actual change in a game, rather than feature after feature until the game is a bloated mess.

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